transposable element

to the man who’s more than i ever had the right to ask for, happy birthday.

ruth: “i found this job announcement in naturejobs. i think i’m qualified. shall i give it a try?”

hubby: “this sounds good!”

after 2 minutes…

hubby: “you know, i just read this article this morning saying that the environment during the first three years has the greatest impact on a child’s development. after that, it’s all a play of genetics. so we really should have a look that jan is getting enough stimuli…nurture…potential…blah-blah…”

oh. right. i forgot; i already have a job.

***

is it just me, or is it really human nature to want what is not there? to yearn to be in point B when you’re at point A? and when finally reaching point B, to be wistful of being back in point A?

***

and when you reach crossroads, do you also find yourself unconsciously leaning towards people you trust and whose opinions you value? not to explicitly ask for opinion or guidance, but just to remind yourself of your own core values and beliefs? perhaps to reassure yourself of the context of your own principles?

it’s sometimes disconcerting when people tell me to savour these years that my son is still so young. that this stage passes by so quickly it’s all over before one knows it. while some part of my brain accepts the logic, there’s something i don’t get: why is it so darn hard to do just that?

how am i supposed to enjoy battling over every single thing with jan? how am i supposed to derive joy from listening to his whining and tantrums? is it supposed to be cute when jan does exactly the opposite of what i say, or when he says “lass mich in ruh’ (leave me alone)” when i point out that he’s got his shoes the wrong way? how can someone tell me “that’s normal” when i complain that i have to ask jan 20 times to open his mouth so i can brush his teeth properly, considering we have been on this routine for the last one and a half years?!

they say that the baby’s first year is the most exhausting period. physically, perhaps. but those who coined it the “terrible two’s” must have had kids like jan. sometimes i am just so exhausted. i am just so darn tired of treading that thin line, of trying to let him know his boundaries without breaking his self-confidence and without him seeing me as the enemy. i hate it and berate myself doubly, each time i find myself yelling at him. i haven’t gotten to the point of hitting him, but i have to admit, there were instances i was so damn near it, i had to grind my teeth.

i don’t like losing my temper. i don’t like yelling at my own son. and please, i don’t want to reach that point of hurting him physically. but it’s so trying, it leaves my nerves raw. why does instilling discipline hurt ME so much? now i realize what my own parents meant with the ‘riddle’ they used to say: “mas nasasaktan ako pag pinapalo kita.”

no, i’m not asking for a meek and obedient child who’d only do as i bid (god forbid!), but do i always have to gather the dregs of my patience at the end of every single day?

my former expat colleagues in IRRI always claimed that “all filipinos can sing”. after spending the better part of last saturday in rhada’s place, i’m starting to believe it’s true. and if it is indeed true, then that must make me a deletion mutant: the whole singing-gene is missing in my sequence. i’m two notes short of being tone-deaf, no kidding! i’ve spared two notes because, 1) i can still sing a few children’s songs and it sounds ok when jan sings after me (so by deduction, i must have done it correctly, hehe), and 2) i cringe when the neighbors back home make a massacre of “my way” or “dito ga…este dito ba?”. hehehe…

now seriously, i had so much fun, girls! but please, next time, spare your ears the pain and don’t put me less than a meter away from the magic-mic!

how many women do you know has held their hubby’s ex’s child in her arms (and no, not in the act of strangulating the poor child)?

i have.

i met her the first time three years ago in berlin, during one of hubby’s school-barkada reunion. i remember being extremely anxious about the meeting. no, not a tinge of jealousy (cross my heart!); just anxious, and curious. except for some snippets, i hardly knew a thing about her. sure, hubby and i talked about our past relationships early on, but i’ve never really spent much time thinking about her or about them. she was a part of his past i had no part of. and with memory such as mine, i’ve got to choose what to retain in my head; irrelevant stuff like these get chucked out as soon as they’re processed. anyways…

it turned out it couldn’t have been more different that what you often see in movies: wife and ex going for each other’s throats, hurling accusations and smirking at each other. nah, none of that; not worth offering film rights for. the air was palpable, sure, but not with animosity. i felt half a dozen pairs of eyes watching intently for a clash that didn’t happen. but, or maybe because of that, it felt strange. had she been a bitch, i knew exactly what she’s gonna get from me. but how do you treat someone who smiles at you and goes out of her way to know you and chat you up, without so much as a whiff of malice or ill-will? how do you carry on when all the while you’re thinking, “OMG, she seems exactly like the perfect match to hubby!”. how can you help yourself from thinking, “shucks, hubby could’ve probably done better by her, instead of little old me (and that could be literally taken, too, yikes!).”

the next time we met, we celerated new year’s eve together, along with other friends of hubby’s from school. she was on her last trimester of pregnancy, and jan was then more than a year old. and just a few weeks ago, i was holding her 10 month old julian, instead of jan, as the mother of our host wished me a happy new year.

oh, we’re not friends. maybe given other circumstances, we could be. hubby aside, i think we have lots in common. but as it is, it just feels… unusually strange.

just when i started to seriously consider making a longer, possibly permanent, hiatus, i get a message that i (or my blog?) has been “a sobering experience in an otherwise tumultuous blog existence”. uy, big words, and am not sure i get the context, hehe. but it feels kind of nice to know that this blog has touched someone else other than self-centered me. for that, am putting off my plans of bidding adieu to the blogging world for a later time. perhaps, albeit unbeknownst to me, there’s more sense in this blog that i gave it credit for. hm, another season perhaps.

when friends all the way from frankfurt pack their kids and (in tet’s case) car and make the hour trip just to say hello and play with jan, it always helps drive the winter gloom away. never mind that i didn’t have the proper gastronomic offering. never mind that not a single item is left unturned in jan’s room, leaving not so much as a square foot of bare floor you can walk on. never mind that jan chose to display his artistic talents by drawing on the whole length of the sofa. never mind that the neighbors were probably wondering if i’ve turned my living room into a ktv room, our thin walls not withstanding the beats, thumps and mooning over abba’s dancing queen. with such company, it takes little else to make a day so much fun! thanks for coming over, guys!

***

i’ve just voted for doc emer’s site and i implore you to improve the less than 2% advantage (when i casted my vote) and do so, too. doc emer’s parallel universes brings medicine and science on a level palatable and unimposing to the common mind. aside from merely reporting the facts, he also includes snippets of personal info that makes his blog an even more interesting read. but until today, i’ve just realized i didn’t even have doc emer on my links; gotta rectify that. i’ve always simply jumped from some other blog or another to his; just goes to show how popular and how well-read doc emer’s is. absolutely no reason he shouldn’t get a clean, clear win.

***

i’ve been giving my new year gameplan quite a big deal of thought, but am still stuck as i have never been one to make new years resolutions. i can remember i made one last year, and the only reason i remember it at all is because i made it rhyme: “clutter no more in 2004!” well, if you’ve checked our flat recently, you’ll see that i haven’t made much progress. until i can convince hubby to throw the collection of time magazines dating back to 2001 (he wouldn’t accept my argument that everything’s available on the net, anyway), i don’t think i’ll be able to make much headway into clearing this apartment of a lot of junk. aaaargh! but i swear, there’s no way in heaven i’ll be lugging all these stuff WHEN we move to a new place!

during the christmas break, we had the chance to go out for brunch with a friend who just finished his PhD in diabetic research and has been trying to find a job for quite some time already. at the moment, trying to find a job here in germany is quite frustrating and that he’s now looking for opportunities abroad. he’s been to a few interviews already and two qestions he never knew the appropriate answers to were 1) to identify his weaknesses and 2) to describe how he sees himself 5 years from now. with the first question, you’ve got to think of a weakness that is so mundane that it wouldn’t affect your chances of getting the job. you cannot, for example, say that you canot cope well with stress, or that your communication skills need improvement, or that your workplace is always a mess. so what answers do you give?!?

as for the second question, well, who knows where one is gonna be –and how things would look like– next year, much less five years from now?

a couple of days after, though, we had afternoon coffee with another set of hubby’s friends, one of which is working for one of the biggie consultant firms here in germany. he said that he is sometimes aghast at the lack of direction graduates have nowadays, and that they have absolutely no vision or plan of where they want to be in the next 10 years or so. he added that if you have no plan whatsoever, then you’ll just be drifting along, grasping at whatever comes you way, whether it’s what you wanted or not, whether it’s good for you or not. not having a goal in the first place, you shouldn’t be surprised then when ten years pass by and you’re still, well, nowhere really.

hm. now i’m confused. it does make sense. sure, there are things that are beyond your control, and that life is not a one-track path, but we must have general long-term goals, somehow, right? otherwise, how would one know if one’s in the right direction?

so! new year’s resolution number 1: make a new year’s resolution. hm, lemme see….

another of jan’s tsamba-pieces i chose to entitle “kero goes to the ball”.

once upon a time, i could eat whatever i wanted, whenever i wanted, and not gain an ounce. or change shapes. i can recall only one period in my life that i felt really fat: after the first term in college. after the rigorous and well-structured high school schedule, i was unused to having long vacant periods in-between lectures, i spent all those free time snacking or napping. at the end of the term, i was so chubby, the undersides of my boobies would be rubbing against my tummy. ugh! just a few weight training sessions solved that though, and never again have i gained so much (until my pregnancy, but that’s altogether different).

now, after more than a week being pampered by my in-laws and spending the holidays like a bakasyonista, it’s payback time. they say that there are people are people who are so-called apple shaped, in contrast to those who are pear-shaped; i see that i am neither. i’m more like… lemon-shaped: slender on the extremities, but with a rotund midsection. am still not overweight, but i’ve lost whatever muscle tone my abdominal area had since i got pregnant. and being the sloth i am, i’ve never lifted a finger or done a single sit-up in the last two years to bring it back to its pre-preggie form. so when feasts such as in the last weeks come, i’m like santa, or quasimodo, except that my baggage is in front. haaay….

oh well. different folks, different strokes, different shapes. hehe. at least, having a lemon shaped figure is still heaps better than what a n@wie friend refers to as being likened to a shrimp: the only part of value is the body.