transposable element

it’s amazing how much spam i get in each day. from people selling rolexes, “sexy blue pills” to offers of puppies for adoption and a p3nis upgrade, whatever that means. i get about 50 or so of those a day in my inbox, i.e., not counting those that are caught in the spam folder. that’s the price you have to pay, i guess, if you have your email addresses published on the web.

what interests me is that there seems to be a trend in these spams. sometime ago, there was a wave of “you won in the xxx lottery” and “you inherited a large sum from a distant relatives”. and of course, was anyone spared from the folks allegedly from nigeria seeking help in laundering money? but those are easy to spot. not so are those that at first glance look as if they came from ebay, paypal, and online banks, fishing (phishing) for your account details. and what’s even more scary is that the names and email addresses of the senders of these spams are looking more and more valid. perhaps they are real people, paid to scour the web for addresses they can send their emails to. if you were offered such a task, would you do it? i don’t know but i’m sure the pay can’t be that much. a few cents per email sent, maybe.

me? i’d rather blog about reno hotels and such. at least it’s clean money and i’m not being a p.i.t.a. to anyone.

when i hear someone say she’d love to just be stay at home mom if she could, i often find myself thinking that if she really did feel that way, she would. so why doesn’t she? if one delves deep enough, i suspect many (not all, of course) women choose to not to stay at home not because they can’t, but because they don’t want to.

and that’s fine.

don’t want to be tied at home, tending to the household and kids 24/7. don’t want to give up the second income. don’t want to lose out on career opportunities. don’t want to lose the sense of self they’ve built over several years. don’t want to be intellectually stagnant. don’t want to be considered less productive. don’t want to lose self-worth. don’t want to be financially dependent on spouse. don’t want exchange the glamour for the hausfrau lifestyle.

sure, i know, because over the last years, i’ve felt all those at some point or another, too. being a sahm is definitely not an option for everyone. for me, it resonates with my priorities and values. it’s the option that feels right (whether it actually is, isn’t important. afterall, i think there are no absolute rights and wrongs in such issues).

what i have learned over the past 6 years, though, is that deciding to be a sahm need not be cast in stone. children grow up, the family needs vary in time, a person’s priorities change, too. before mia came into our lives, i was nearly ready to go back to work. no, not build a career, but just find a job. but now that mia’s here, that has got to be shelved once more. do i regret it? honestly, yes, a bit. but i know that if i don’t give mia the kind of attention and environment i was able to provide jan, i will regret it even more.

there will always be jobs out there. there will always be opportunities (Wilmington real estate, anyone? — hehe, wala akong commision dyan) . but these precious years when my kids need me most, that happens only once.

barely two weeks to go and i can’t wait.

to get into normal clothes, that is. when you’ve been wearing the same set of clothes over and over for months on end because you really don’t want to buy something that you won’t ever wear again after you give birth, well, it can get pretty boring. i know it will still take some time til i fit into my old clothes again (if at all), and i probably would be wearing nursing tops anyway instead of “real” clothes for the next few months. but it would be nice to get a pair (or a couple) of more stylish shoes. Naots are practical and comfy, but geez, i’ve been a practical-and-comfy shopper all my life, i think i’d like to have something more stylish as soon as i no longer have this heavy bump putting me off balance. nah, doesn’t have to be blahniks or jimmy choos.

maybe…. crocs, haha!

for some reason, i’ve been thinking of weddings a lot the last few days. the guy who took my maternity photos and his wife were a blast from the past– his wife and i were active members of the weddings@work email group about 7-8 years back, organizing our respective weddings. we got to talk our search for photo- and videographers, and how these guys, who were just starting out during those days, are now big names in the industry. i am especially pleased to see how far jason magbanua (jasonmagbanua.com) has gone to become one of the most awarded and coveted wedding videographer today. i’m not going to reveal what a measly sum he charged us back then, but i’m glad we got married in 2000. if we were to get married this year, i would never have the budget to afford his services. but oh, is he worth every peso! check out this video teaser he made. he shot and edited it on the same day, and showed it during the reception:

cool, eh?

i hope i can unearth our wedding video from all the rubble and clutter here in our flat so i can post it here in my blog. it was made before the advent of all these modern digital cameras and editing software now available, but the style, the craftsmanship is still distinctly jason magbanua’s.
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when we were planning our wedding almost 8 years ago, i had tremendous help from the weddingsatwork email group. back then, there were no blogs yet, not much independent, unbiased reviews of wedding related services, particularly in the philippines. nowadays, it seems that information for organizing weddings, or any event for that matter, has become much more accessible.

for those of you organizing weddings, check out marikit toni’s new blog: bigdayplunge.com

looking back to my own wedding, i am happy with most of the suppliers i ended up with (i had no wedding coordinator; proudly a d.i.y bride!). our photographer was superb and discreet (and that was before the advent of digital photography), and our videographer who was just starting back then was none other than jason magbanua, who, several years later, was the one commissioned to shoot claudine barretto’s wedding. if there was one aspect i wasn’t entirely happy about, it was the florist and flower arrangements we got. to this day, i still feel disappointed about that. so here’s a tip i thought i would share:

for those of you needing flowers for an wedding on a budget, find someone who offers wholesale calla lilies, roses, daisies, hydrangeas, and other flowers. not only will they come out cheaper, they will also be arrive with your much fresher. you can also order flower packages which would include the bridal bouquet, bridesmaid bouquet, corsages, boutonnieres, and table arrangements. or if the budget is really tight, you can just order the flowers and have a talented friend or professional do the arrangement. or, if money was no object and you’re looking for rare flowers, or a type you won’t find in dangwa, such as ecuadorian long stem roses, consider getting them from fifty flowers. they ship your orders by fedex within 2-3 days of being cut.

this was how i looked like when i was about 7 months pregnant with jan.

my belly looks pretty much the same now… and i’m just 5 and a half months along, yikes!

during my check up yesterday, i was dismayed to find out that i gained more than about 2 and a half kilograms– that’s about 1 kg more than i should have (a pound per week is considered ideal from second trimester onwards). at 23 weeks, i already weigh almost as much as i did on my 36th week when i was pregnant with jan. oh well, they say plump moms have smarter kids, so at least, that’s one consolation.

at the rate i’m going, i wonder how long it will take til i lose all these extra baggage after i give birth! i wish there was some kind of plasma lift meant for flab that can make them disappear with a push of a button.

on the halfway mark, and i can no longer count the number of ways my current pregnancy is different from my first.

prior to this, i’ve always said that i felt prettiest when i was pregnant with jan and that it was probably one of the happiest periods in my life. i basked in the attention and affection of the people around me, and except for very minor and occasional aches and pains, my pregnancy went smooth as silk. i devoured all information i could, and kept a pregnancy journal, noting all the tiniest details my body was going through. every centimeter, every gram i gained. every nudge and kick i felt.

this time? pretty is the last word i would use to describe how i feel. tired, clumsy, bloated, lazy, heavy, lousy, awkward. i’ve been remiss in taking my multivitamins, and i haven’t picked up a book on pregnancy. good thing i have NNN, which at least forces me to confront the subject of pregnancy. i’m not even excited to shop for baby stuff. i have an appointment with the OB later and instead of being eager to get updated with my baby’s development, i’m thinking it’s a waste of time. who wouldn’t, when you have to wait more than an hour for a 5-minute consultation with the doc, to be told that everything’s fine, and could you set up another appointment in 4 weeks’ time?

are subsequent pregnancies really less exciting than the first? or is it just me? perhaps i’m too old, too pragmatic, too jaded? or is this a phase i will eventually shake out of?

an asus eee pc, for its portability and simplicity

or

an apple macbook — more power, more capabilities, a more sensible choice

or

a sony vaio ls pc/tv combo — to replace my desktop, with multimedia possibilities

arrrgh, but with the batch of expenses we’ve had to deal with this year, our planned vacation early next year, and the baby-related expenses, it looks like i’ll have to wait.

ok, save for peace on earth and love among all mankind, what’s your christmas wish this year?

we’ve already secured most of jan’s christmas gifts, mostly from amazon.de — books, videos and cds, all in german. if you speak german, you can tell that he has an advanced german vocabulary, diction and sentence construction for his age. we knew, however, that with his strengthening english and introductory mandarin, he’s running the risk of slipping on his german, so we countered this with a rich exposure to german literature at home, particularly books and audiobooks. it seems like it does help; when my FIL was here just recently, he has been positively surprised that jan has kept this, using complex sentences with clauses and almost perfect grammar.

what would we be without amazon? although it is possible to order foreign-language items from the local bookstore here, i find it more convenient to browse and shop at amazon.

our christmas shopping is far from over, though. and looking at my to-do list this month, online shopping is definitely a convenient option. if you are planning to do any of your shopping at amazon this Christmas, too, please consider clicking through to Amazon using this link (or click on the image above)! if you do, you will be gifting me a tiny commission from amazon for anything that you purchase, at no extra cost to you. if you shop frequently at amazon, why not bookmark the link on your browser?

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?