transposable element

case no. 1. about 2 years ago, i bought a set of WMF teaspoons. it had a nice classic design with matte silver handle and a sweet sensuous curve. anyway. so i bought a set of six. about a few months ago, i recognized that there’s always only four of them on the cutlery drawer even when the sink’s all empty. i just assumed that the other two must be under the bed or on a shelf somewhere (chaotic house, i know). but months of futile search yielded nothing. drat, i’m starting to suspect hubby chucked his yoghurt cups in the recycle bin, teaspoon and all!

case no. 2. now in case you’re a jeffrey deaver fan like me, you’d be worried sick to find that one of your kitchen knives is missing. also about 2 years ago (pardon my poor memory, but am i supposed to remember when i bought what?!), we bought a nice set of kitchen knives (proudly german made! hehe), complete with a stand block. the block is crucial in this story because it’s impossible to miss that there are slits (slots?) for exactly 5 knives. and yes, as it would go in a pinoy thriller movie, one of them is missing. it’s not the size that will end up at the back of the drawer or at the back of the sofa (you know, in case hubby used it for bread), so it’s really unnerving. i’m half convinced of a benign explanation such as the knife again ending up with the trash, having been all wrapped up together with potato peels and apple cores. but sometimes my mind whispers of something more macabre. gee, i’ve been reading too many martha grimes and patricia cornwell.

case no. 3. this case is just so annoying. during my last philippine vacation, i’ve sent at least 15 postcards to all over the globe, and i’ve gotten confirmation of receipt from only 4. do you know how difficult it is, by the way, to find decent postcards away from tourist-infested hotspots and posh resorts? i mean, really, who buys those postcards with pictures of lapu-lapu and apolinario mabini?? luckily, i spotted those with photos of pinoy dishes and their corresponding recipes at the back. ingenious! now, i assume half the responsibility for anna’s postcard getting lost (didn’t put any zipcode), but what about the other 10? and here i am, thinking i’m doing the society good by re-popularizing the seemingly-lost art of snail-mail. sus!

last week, an article appeared on the new york times supplement for the süddeutsche zeitung that had me incredulously shaking my head. it contained snippets and higlights of the 1993 interview ramona diaz had with the grand dame prior to filming the documentary film, “imelda”. the last two paragraphs read:

“But when she (Imelda) talks about buying Italian paintings,
she’ll say she did it for the country: “I knew all
of them couldn’t travel to see the paintings.’ And
she won’t see the irony. There’s not much of self-
reflecting.

” When she’s asked about negative press, she’ll say:
‘Am I really that bad? Am I really that ugly? Then I
think, No, I’m O.K.’ She’s convinced, as she says
in the film, ‘I did the best I could with everything
that God gave me.’ Mrs. Marcos’s impetus for everything
is beauty. ‘If I did all these horrible things, ‘ she
said to me, ‘I wouldn’t look this good physically.’”

after reading it, i couldn’t help but chide myself for likening imelda to evita peron in an essay i once wrote in high school. my only excuse is that i am a martial law baby and didn’t know any better. gee, really. why can’t people just keep quiet instead of saying things that just expose how utterly shallow they are (and i’m no longer talking of just imelda here, hehehe…)?

1. germany is out of the race;
2. summer doesn’t feel like summer; and
3. i’ve got a purple toenail due to an ill-fitting shoe.

shit.

as i brought jan to kindergarten this morning, i’ve just realized it has become an international playgroup of sorts. out of the 8 children, only 2 are full german. nastja is born to russian academics, mert is trurkish, and florian is half persian. mia’s mother is an american and that of noah is from eritrea. and jan, of course, is half-pinoy. aside from getting exposed early on to people who, in child-speak, looks a bit different than they do, now and then their tastebuds also gets primed with international cuisine since the parents take turns cooking lunch. lately, we don’t cook lunch anymore as hubby takes care of the finances and that’s deemed to be too much work already, but when were still part of the cooking-wheel, i’d sometimes cook pancit, sopas (macaroni soup), or fish ginataan. and the other parents sometimes prepare something “ethnic” as well. but then, even if it’s just spaghetti, for sure, the russian version would taste a tad bit different to a persian one, right– just like the jollibee spaghetti tasting more pinoy than the mcdo recipe?

at this age, jan does recognize noah’s skin color. he has a book with a photo of an african boy and he insists calling the boy “noah”. he’s quite fond of the boy, actually. noah’s the first kid jan looks for upon arriving in kindergarten and the first name he says when i ask him whom he’s been playing with. oh, and when you see all the kids playing together, the scene is so heart-warming. i wish that tolerance, that lack of prejudice will stay with them all through their lives. am sure even at this early age, they know they are different from each other. but that doesn’t keep them from having fun together. they know how to focus on the important things, like they all have eyes and ears. and that they have equal rights to all the toys around them. that they all get hungry at some point. and that they all get hurt when bitten or pushed. and a thousand other things they have IN COMMON.

sometimes i wish other adults could come, too, and perhaps learn a few things.

sabi nila (yes, plural!) mabait daw ako. i really don’t know what they mean, but if i want them to continue believing it, i’ll have to keep them from meeting people who knew me back in college. like quennie’s friendster testimonial implies, i was the taray queen back then. whereas it would normally take an average of 5 minutes for a GeneSoc neophyte to get a member to sign his tickler (those tiny notebooks where you keep proof of whom you’ve reported to), with me it would last a minimum of half an hour of quizzing about genetic principles, social aptitudes, general philosophy or whatever other topics i could think of (i was particularly fond of seing them sweat trying to think why stamps are placed on the upper right corner of an envelope). unsatisfactory answers would equate long hours of research in the library or several signed pages ripped off the tickler. those who fail to report would dread meeting me at the finals in anticipation of the verbal assault they would get. yes, bad girl, i know.

but that was then. back when i was still a rioting-hormones-driven teenager. back when my temperament was explosive and unpredictable (well, actually, it still is, but it did get attenuated over the years). back when i had so much surplus energy i could tackle everyone and everything i disagree with. back when all i had to think of and fend for is myself. ah… those were the days!

i have to admit, i’m still opinionated, i’m still mataray. but now, i often keep my opinions to myself and make conscious effort to keep my bitchiness under control. yes, there are things (and people) that annoy me. but now i choose my battles. if nobody stands to gain anything good from it, i don’t waste a single breath or bother lifting a finger. why get into an argument with people who can’t reciprocate (or in other cases, retaliate?)? in other words, dead-ma, pasok sa isang tenga, labas sa kabila, ma at pa! i also choose my opponents. if there’s a fly in my soup, i won’t argue with the waiter; i’d complain staight to the manager (well, that doesn’t work here in germany when often, the waiter is the manager, hehe). likewise, when i questioned the inequity of the starting salaries of research assistants at IRRI, i addressed my letter directly to the director general and just furnished the HRD manager and my direct supervisor a copy.

you see, if AnP believes in the maxim “tell me who your friends are and i’ll tell you who you are”, my one goes “tell me who your enemies are and i’ll tell you who you are”.

so, mabait? nah, just plain dead-ma. you’ve got to be one big important guy to rile up my feathers. otherwise, buzz off, i’ve got a kid and a household to take care of.

last saturday evening, i had the chance to catch the ust singers do a concert here in the city. there was a good turn-out, considering it was football night, although most are in the senior age-bracket. out of the approx 150 guests, there were surprisingly few filipinos in the audience, possibly less than 20. their loss, cause the concert was fabulous! after the first song, my heart was swelling with pride and, ridiculous and OA as it may sound, i was moved to tears. well, it was really more of pride than anything else.

during 15 minute break, i bought a cd of their live concert. i probably should have gotten their latest cd which was studio-recorded, but the concert cd contains four tracks from carmina burana. i’m a carmina burana fanatic, so much so that i wanted to have thundering o fortuna for my bridal march, but the priest wouldn’t hear of it. we ended up with the gregorian chant version of metallica’s nothing else matters. i reckon, the priest didn’t know metallica.

back to the concert: i heard another pinay whisper, though, that the u.p. singers they saw in frankfurt were more impressive. ahem. i wonder if that was the madrigal or the choral ensemble she was referring to. ey, frankfurters, if you get wind of upcoming do’s in the area, give a head’s up, ok?

the last couple of days, i’ve been trying to find an online album for my photos. i’ve created accounts in several online albums: photobucket, bloggerbot, shutterfly, to name a few. while i’ve used photobucket to hotlink the photos i use on this blog, i find the album itself too rudimentary. hello is too circuitous. villagephotos free accounts allows you to upload only 25 photos and shutterfly is currently unavailable.

so i’ve turned to photoblogs. fotopages is quite ok and very easy to use, allowing you to upload 6 photos at a time. this is perfect for people whose blogs contain a lot of pictures; no need for hot-linking to another online storage. downside: just one skin available. buzznet is another good photoblog host and has the added feature of organizing your pictures into galleries. the only downside is that you’re only allowed to upload 10 photos per day. so if you’re like me, who has boxes and boxes of prints to sift through (no digicam for me, i’m still mastering my SLR), it might take quite a while til the albums are all filled. so it might take days, or weeks, but when my albums are done, i’ll post the link here!

since we came back from the philippines 2 weeks ago, i am constantly amazed to see how jan changed. physically, there might not be a noticeable difference; he probably grew just a centimeter, if at all, and his weight seems to be on a plateau. but his social and mental development seems to be on an exponential rise at the moment.

the dramatic increase in his vocabulary sometimes takes me aback. he’s spitting out new words like never before and mimics us when he hears a new word from us. he listens intently when spoken to and parrots the keywords. one word i think i’m regretting him learning so early is the word ‘buy’. if he asks for an apple and we tell him we no longer have any, his eyes sparkle as if a bright idea just came and exclaims, “buy!”. once, i tried distracting him and said, “we can’t get more apples because we have no more money.” he paused and said, “ummm…buy!”. after about 5 rounds of me telling him we don’t have money and him insisting we buy, he was getting frustrated and i was getting confused. so i asked the absurd: “buy money?”. with a sigh of relief, he replied with a resounding “ja!!!”. okaaaay. next step: how do i deal with a 21-month old’s logic?

yes, he’s speaking in both german and english, with just a smattering of tagalog he picked up during our visit. there are terms he prefers to say in german, but most are in english. i’ve a tiny bit of worry that he’ll mix up the languages, but right now, i’m just happy that he’s starting to speak at all. we have been warned early on by our pediatrician and the teachers in his kindergarten that his speech might be delayed. they said the other older bilingual girl in j’s kindergarten started talking around 26 months, which was already quite late considering she’s attending the playgroup. the only other bilingual kid we watched grow up was justice’s little princess, alyanna, who also spoke her first word (a variant of “apple juice”) when she was past 2. so we were already expecting jan to be “speechless” for still some time. but it seems that being with the other kids in the playgroup helped, and the visit to his pinoy relatives fanned the coals. di pwede ang tahimik sa pilipinas, haha!

his memory and ability to concentrate on tasks also improved lots. prior to our visit, i was always worried when he wouldn’t concentrate on his shape-sorters and would lose interest halfway through a puzzle. now you can nearly hear his mental gears grinding as he pauses to think something out. he knows all his playmates and teachers by name. when we read him a book, he knows what’s coming even before we lift to the next page. he recognizes the way to the playground and points me to that direction whenever we go out for a walk. i don’t know how much of it is due to increasing neural connections, and how much is just out of coincidence. if these go on at this rate, shucks, this kid is gonna outsmart me in just a couple of years!

something’s being stolen
from right under my nose.

athena and karma
urges me to let go.

afterall, what is given
cannot be stolen.

should i?
or stage a battle?

hay naku, bahala na! kayo, ano’ng maipapayo nyo?

this article has been doing the email rounds presumably for some time now, and though i absolutely detest chain-emails, this one piqued my interest. the author is a contributor to inquirer and the article may have been first published there. am too lazy to search the inquirer archives, but i did ‘google’ the author and apparently, she’s an assitant professor at UPD college of education. the message is loud and clear, guys! and to the beautiful and intelligent moms out there, give yourselves a pat on the back!

***

WHY CHOOSING AN INTELLIGENT WIFE IS IMPORTANT
By Grace Shangkuan Koo, Ph.D.

Beauty or Brains? Brains or Beauty? People ask men whether they would choose a beautiful wife or a brainy one… What do you expect their answers would be? - the HONEST answers.

When we see a pretty woman who stays unmarried, we WONDER why!!! But for a plain girl to remain single, we think we KNOW why. This is different in the case of a man…the brainiest get as many points as the handsomest, if not more.

Some women are beautiful until they open their mouths; some are plain until they share their minds. Watch the noontime shows where the hosts make fun of the “intelligence” of the pretty girls parading before them. It appears that the girls do not feel insulted. As a matter of fact, they look like they are enjoying it, and quite proud to be noticed, and appearing on TV.

The “dumb blonde” image is not merely a stereotype; it speaks of values, of choices, of consequences. When more and more intelligent women are bypassed as man’s choice for a wife, we may be losing some of the best genes for a bright future.

Research has shown that a child’s IQ is highly correlated with the parents’ IQ - more so with the mother’s IQ than the father’s. Particularly, the mother’s education provides the key to understanding a child’s achievement and motivation. What are these studies saying? That NATURE plays a very important part in the offspring’s intelligence, and that the NURTURE educated parents provide, will determine the learning environment which enhances
innate capabilities.

Mothers are more involved in their children’s education, directly and indirectly. Mothers provide language models for their child - they correct grammar, interact more with their child, expand his vocabularies, model sentence patterns. They decide on the types of books and toys to be bought, types of family activities on weekends; these speak of the “intellectuality” of the family. Mothers develop a child’s work habits and routine. They are more involved in supervising homework of their children, and are more knowledgeable of their child’s progress. Do I hear a chorus of “Amen’s” from the mothers?

If a mother is more concerned about beauty than brain, her daughter may be more interested reading fashion magazines than Time or Newsweek. She may spend her money more on clothes than books, her time, in beauty salons than in playing word games.

Hoping not to stereotype beautiful women, we are looking at some practical implication. A parent who loves books would naturally scatter books around the house. A parent who loves Math provides a model of careful attention to details and persistence.

Putting aside the genetics of intelligence (many researches find heredity to be a more pronounced factor), the “learning” part of a child’s intelligence can at least be predicted and controlled. An intelligent, educated, and accomplished woman is not to be feared: she is to be pursued, not only for a job, but also for a wife.

If the reader starts to think that this writer is an unattractive professor sour-graping, you may be surprised. I get quite a few compliments for my looks; and I am amazed- and confused, although I should admit, I like the feeling. I never thought myself to be beautiful. The first person who thought I was beautiful was my husband, and I did not believe him! Maybe my parents thought so too, but they did not express it. As a girl, I was even greeted with “What an ugly child!” by a visitor when I showed up in the introduction of family members. Maybe I should not blame her, because I was a scrawny girl, with a flat nose and “chinky” eyes. I now console myself that I am a late bloomer. The criteria for beauty must have changed!

Growing up, we get an idea of how “intelligent” we must be, by our report cards and class honor’s roll. We had a stronger sense of our academic self-concept. But when we get into the real world, we may find out how differently the society assesses us. The media tell us that the beautiful women are more prized. The be-spectacled “professora” takes a backseat in talk shows where supposedly she is the expert on the topic; and the beautiful actress who doesn’t even care about the issue, or understand the question, is given the seat of importance.

The lesson here is for intelligent women to package themselves nicely. To the best of your ability, beautify. The first few seconds or minutes of good appearance-impression will give you a chance to speak. In a society where beauty takes precedence over intelligence, many brilliant women never get a chance to communicate their ideas. One can be both beautiful and brainy. It’s easy to dress fashionably, to learn a few cosmetic tricks; it’s more difficult to train a sharp mind, make a witty remark, master and be fluent in language. Prettify and give the world a chance to hear what’s in the minds of intelligent women.