a breakthrough. a reward. my pearl of great price. what joy!

Cheers hunny!

I've always been happy about my birth date. I was born on two eights and two sevens--two numbers which stand for lucky and perfect in chinese and hebrew numerology. Living thirty years, I can say that my life is indeed a lucky and perfect one. I can wish for nothing else. I can only look at my M/maker/s with utmost humility and gratitude.

Days prior to my birthday were days of sentimentality. I'm blessed, more than just being lucky. I have a wife whom I love so much and who loves me even more. I married her at the perfect union of time--hers and mine. I have a good friend who would be with me through and through and a lifetime partner who I feel secure with. I can entrust my future to her; I feel safe. I am my self with her. I also have a house short of being called a dream house if only it were already ours. I've always wanted something like the guest house in the series The O.C. It's a small house with a swimming pool--perfect to suit my fancy and my workout regimen and of course to start a family by. This is the kind of house where we're now staying. I'm like playing house with my wife in there. Everything works out well in that house and this soon, I and my wife have created memories in every corner of our rented house. Of course, thanks to Cathy's kuya and her tita for allowing us to occupy the blue house while it's standing there idly. And so, leaving house is like parting from my h(e)aven yet opening its gates is like welcoming in more blessings.

Yes, blessings extend beyond the gates of my sanctuary. For one, I have my family who is only a seven-minute drive away from me. I have them at my back for coaching and support. Remember, Robert Frost's poem about the two roads diverging on a yellow wood? He said once you choose one you can never go back to the other. I beg to differ. It just ain't true that one can never undo what has been done. One can always go back to the step prior the leap because one never loses his parents and family who are waiting behind willing to accommodate an erring son and tolerate him for his insolence and impulsiveness. Ones family is the back button he can run to whenever he needs to undo a choice and do another. And I have a steady back button with me always.

And then I have my friends. Ah friends! I had a review of the FIRO-B personality test when the guidance office took over my class yesterday. I remembered being a "Now-you-see-him-now-you-don't" kind of person when I took the test many years ago and hearing the description, I realized I haven't changed that much after all after so many years. I am warm to people; I treat them with special care but I'm not in so much need for a return-back. I'm fine with that. Quite happy and proud to be one. Most of my friends have left for other places and/or changed civil status. You know what the latter implies: it means less time and more talk about household and kids stuff which are so Grown-up!--not too enjoyable spending time about. Be that as it may--me being a NYSHNYD person and my friends gone and grown-up--I love my friends and I'm happy with the way things are going. They're there when I need them and they know when they need to come in. On Saturday, my wife's throwing me a party and all the great men and women in my life will be there to cheer my big 3-0.

Career is just right. I'm happy I'm in Ateneo that even if I have so much to say about her not being this and that, Ateneo remains to be that place where dreams can be realized. It's an idyllic place, safe and distant from the banality of human preoccupation with money and power. The institution is not perfect; the people running it are not perfect but like any other organization, it's striving hard to perfect its system. What's good in Ateneo is that dialogue works and I'm happy just thinking about how the ideal can be real within the confines of its own flaws and limitations.

Third is my clean bill of health. My body's responding well to the fitness regimen I'm subjecting myself to and I'm extremely delighted with the outcome. I've been working out for over three years now--I'm not that big, but I'm not skinny either.  And like what I've said in my earlier post, I'm satisfied with the mass and body I now have. It's just the frequency of heart burns that's bothering me now, otherwise, I'm a-okay!

Lastly, I am not restricted from basking in the pleasures of the world. Recently, I got myself the board shorts I've been eyeing and a pair of Sanuks. Haha! Am I not ready for the summer or what? My wife also got me two new CK's--one with the yellow gold band and the other a low-rise boxer briefs. I also replaced my old swimming trunks with a new Speedo blue one. This will perfectly match my blue goggles and the pull-buoy I bought for lower body training. Last May, my wife and myself bought the car we wanted, a Suzuki Swift, which whom we aptly christened as Dodong. We were also able to get a pull-back miniature Swift after the big purchase. I got seven bottles of expensive wine I can uncork on my party.  Seven bottles and eight cheers for a great life I'm living.

As I drink wine while in a bubble bath, blissfully savoring every moment of my being alone in this Taal Vista Hotel room (which I should say is not that good, don't book here!), I thank God for a truly great life. My life has been so because of a wonderful loving relationship with God. Life without Him would be meaningless and I attribute to His goodness all that I have and more. Looking at the history of my making, I can clearly see His hand serving me nothing but good things on a silver platter.  Yes, that's right, on a silver platter!  Served!  God is good to me, what more can I ask?

 

These were the words I charged the teacher with for entering my classroom, going to the teacher's table and lingering there, fixing her things and reading her notes, while my student assistant was at the board facilitating the class discussion. I literally ran after her and scolded her for disrespecting my student assistant and the class. How rude this teacher was, giving me a head to foot and proudly introducing herself as a faculty of the Chemistry department probably seeing that a boy in shirt, denims and chucks was fuming mad giving her a sermon in front of her students. I spliced my scourge with a brief introduction of who I am and continued on with my outrage. She apologized for not knowing that there was a teacher in the room which added more fuel to an already boiling me in confrontation. "It doesn't matter whether there's a teacher or not, the point is, you disrupted an ongoing session and you lingered in the teacher's desk! You should've gotten your things and left immediately, swiftly! ...how disrespectful ...what example do we show our freshmen!"

I returned to the department still shaking in anger, heart rapidly beating. One colleague kidded me, "'Wag ganun!" downplaying my anger and the cause of that rage. "Hindi eh..." was my response, "hindi tama 'yun eh!" I couldn't believe how people could still smile and crack a joke about the inhumanity of that act. What made me snap in that chem-teacher-intact-class incident was that it was done to my student, to students, and I was given the I-didn't-know-there-was-a-teacher argument! I was even asked by that teacher what appropriateness means when I told her that what she did was inappropriate! For heaven's sake, she is a teacher... how could she not know what proper decorum is?! "If that were done to you, how would you feel? What would you have done?" was my response which silenced her and gave me more breathing space to continue on with my scolding.

This is not about me. This is not about me being protective or territorial. This is not about me being overly reactionary about the incident. This is about respect. This is about propriety. This is about equality. This is about you and me who must practice what we're teaching. No one is above the law. Even teachers, more so teachers, should set the bar of respect and etiquette not only in one's class but in the everyday-ness of living. There is no switching on and off our being teachers, ...sad but true! So, live up to it! Teaching is not a profession; it's a vocation. If you can't hack it, resign!

And to my dear colleague who knows not when to use his psychoanalysis skills (or the lack thereof), the issue, my issue here is not about my slighted ego or that chem teacher's disrespect for my authority. The issue here is respect--not of anyone's ego, territory, or authority--but of just that, respect, respect for human beings just like what we've learned as students and what we're teaching as teachers.

Watch out for Voltron in 2008.

...and the Thundercats in 2010?

"Ang 'metro' mo ngayon ah?" (Boy, you are very 'metro' today!) teased Q to B. B looked at himself and feeling the discomfort in the compliment (or insult--depending on who used the word "metrosexual" and where it was used), tagged me in their conversation saying, "I'm just following the footsteps of Jope."

The Urban Dictionary defines metrosexual as: "A straight man who embraces the homosexual lifestyle, i.e. refined tastes in clothing, excessive use of designer hygiene products, etc. Usually is on the brink of homosexuality."

Although the quote is beaming with references to sexuality, homosexuality in particular, I don't think metrosexuality has something to do with sexuality and/or gender. It just so happened that society has associated refined tastes and high culture to the female gender and any male tinkering with female stuff loses his virility. Anyway, that's not the point of this post. Just to close the issue: anyone, may it be a male or a female should take care of him/herself. One owes it to the "viewing public" but more fundamentally, to him/herself, to dress up well, behave properly, and look good.

A metrosexual, according to Wordspy, is "An urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle." And just to be scientific about it, our love for aesthetics separates us from animals. The creation of body accessories from shells and bones by our ancestors marked the commencement of the world of man. Aesthetics is part of our nature and design. The only deal with metrosexuals is that, by definition, they spend a lot of energy in taking care of themselves physically and culturally. In that case, the term by default quits on me. I just do what I must do; and my apologies to my colleagues if that mirrors their lack of style.

If you can't pull off wearing a tie on a long sleeve shirt, don't mock others for being so pogi in their pink or floral or plain polo shirt. Do something about your lanky or fat body and disproportionate figure. Create, construct; don't mock and ruin somebody's efforts to look and feel good about himself.

On a bad day, I would have countered, "eh sa pangit ka talaga eh, ano magagawa ko?" (What can I do if you don't have it?) It's not being metrosexual or being gay (if that's what they are trying to insinuate). It's really about them not being comfortable in their own skin and them not being able to do anything anymore about their looks--which for me, is still debatable. One can do something about his looks if he so desires it. For chrissake, I've been working on what I have now for seven years. It was a sweaty expensive discipline I subjected myself to. I say, do your part.