transposable element

the thing i love most in living here in singapore (as opposed to europe) is that it’s almost like being in pinas. it’s warm the whole year round; shorts and flip-flops are staple to everyone’s wardrobe. i love the local fruits and we’ve taken to eating longgans, lanzones, mangosteens and mangoes instead of the boring apple, which used to be our staple fruit back in germany. while i do miss picking apples and plums (by this time, we would have gone on our yearly picking expedition had we still been in germany), and none of the different mango varieties i’ve tried is up to par with the philippine carabao mango, we just love the variety of tropical fruits available here. altho if we so wanted, cherries, kiwis, plums, peaches, figs, fresh dates and other bounty from temperate regions are also available.

when i cook pinoy dishes (the few that i know), they also look more authentic. tinola with real green papaya and chili leaves (as opposed to improvising with kohlrabi and spinach). kangkong looks more like the kangkong i’ve always known, and not the spindly malnourished, refrigerated versions i used to get at the asian stores in germsland. funny, but i’ve also gotten back to eating my lumpiang gulay dipped in garlic-vinegar, instead of the sweet-and-sour sauce the asian restos seem to have taught the germans to eat it with. along with cookies and juice, jan has discovered novel snacks: boiled kamote dipped in sugar, boiled sweet corn, and fried saba bananas. typical pinoy promdi merienda, hehe.

and the absolute give-away that there’s a pinoy in the house: the filipino channel. i just follow a handful of programs, really. unfortunately i caught the just the tail end of the claudine-piolo series, but am now a follower of pangarap na bituin, hehe. i’ve been following papa piolo on asap (g, yung cd ko!), and find vhong navarro really entertaining. am not interested in lastikman, really, and feel sad that it has launched as that means i probably wouldn’t see vhong dance during guestings anymore. sigh. and though i sometimes find ruffa almost intolerable, the buzz completes my weekends. showbiz!

hm, i guess, being back in asia, my true colors are starting to show. am not just pinoy. jologs pa. haha!

some headlines i came across the last few days:

Weight Gain Between First and Second Pregnancies Associated With Increased Odds of Second Child Being a Boy– if this is true, the odds are, my next child will be a boy. hm, let’s wait and see.

If you want more babies, find a man with a deep voice — if this is true, i should have dozens of kids by now. no chance.

Is There Really A ‘Mommy’ Gene In Women? — if this is true, then i must have been genetically predisposed to choose motherhood in exchange for a career, lavish vacations and leisurely lifestyles. damn, and i thought it was free will at work. seriously, though, i’ve never realized motherhood and career/fame/fortune are mutually exclusive. for the sake of the future of humanity, i fervently hope this is wrong. can you imagine if all the intellectual, career-driven women achievers out there opt NOT to have children. what a loss to the gene pool!

i can’t believe it’s been five years.

five years since my life made a complete turn-around, giving birth to jan. funny how one little human being can make so much impact on your life, how that one little being can make you re-organize your priorities, change your perspective about life and living, and make you feel as if you’re aging faster than ever. it’s been — if i’m to attempt to put these past five years in one word — a whirlwind, and i’m still dizzy.

when you live on the 13th floor, and the floor is trembling because an earthquake strong enough to trigger a tsunami alert has struck approx 600 km away, what do you do?

when we were still in germany, there were two websites i usually check out whenever the travel bug bites. it was with fly where i chanced upon a 350-euro lufthansa flight from frankfurt to manila in december last year (normal airfare would be about 3x that) and we booked our mallorca holiday via bucherlastminute.

now that we’re in singapore, i’m still on the lookout for travel websites where i can find discounted airfares and travel packages, something like the asian version of cheapoair top 25 deals (imagine LA to hong kong for just $601, or LA to auckland for just over a thousand bucks). there doesn’t seem to be flight aggregators that churn out competitive packages originating from asia (or i just haven’t encountered them yet), and while there are tons of travel offers on the newspapers, i kinda prefer booking online. i don’t know, it just kinda feels extra nice to snag a bargain on your own.

do you book your travel needs online yet? or still prefer to use a travel agent?

note: this entry is brought to you by cheapoair top 25 deals.

i wanted to wake up early today, just for a change, hehe. no, actually, the guilt is piling up. hubby now takes over the morning routine of prepping jan and his backpack, and bringing him to kindergarten, leaving me a few more minutes (more like an hour) curled up comatose in bed, oblivious to the daily ruckus they make.

i get up, turn the pc on, make coffee and prepare for a day’s work. except that these days, i’m so damn tired, without even having started! so many things i wanted to do — look for a dining set, shop for clothes, shoes, scrub the kitchen floor– all get postponed for the weekend, and when weekend comes, i’d come up with all the excuses not to do them. ratatouille, swimming, family time.

truth is, i’m just so tired lazy.