have you ever tried searching Google images for abstract or invisible things like air, wind, love, etc? i did and ended up disturbed by the volume of results i got. there were so many images attached to these words!!! i know, i know, i’m being naive to think that i would find blank squares on the results page – the whole thing just bothered me.
["choke me in the shallow water before i get too deep.."]
so now i’m back to searching Google for “house wilson,” “anne dudek’s legs,” “i hate meredith grey,” “george o’malley is sexy,” “jack bauer” – and by that i give away the status of my nightlife for the past months. the closest i get to beer is the smell of it on my hungover friends at work.
(expression of bewilderment on my face.) i AM a mother.
I finally submitted my application for graduate studies on Monday. I’m not very enthusiastic about the program, though.. My heart is still on the MA English Studies (creative writing) at UP Diliman, to which I got accepted in 2006. I did not go through with it because of the crazy class schedule – a 4x a week commute to and from Quezon City that meant I had to make up like 20 hours of work every week.
I have put off taking my masters, despite having worked in the university this long, because there are only two programs for a writer here. One of them is a continuation of my undergrad program, which doesn’t interest me anymore, and the other one is a shadow of the MAES in UPD and – who would want the shadow over the real thing? (I hope my evaluators for GS do not come across this entry..)
But now I have a baby who means the world to me and I am not about to become the mother who leaves at dawn and comes back late at night smelling like the city and going straight to the computer to get some work done. I want to LIVE motherhood. So, I finally rest my flailing arms and applied for grad studies right here in Los Baños.
There is a window, though. The program I applied for allows nine units, ergo, three courses, to be taken at UP Diliman. Which means I still have a chance to study under the greats of Philippine lit. Yey.
The names of McHottie’s eldest daughter and one of his twins are Isabella and Maya. Isabel is my daughter’s third name and we call her ‘Maya’, from her second name Malaya. :-)
Keisha Chambers is sooooooo lucky. I hope she knows that.
McHottie talking about his wife and his marriage and their kids. As Rachel Ray says, either Justin and Keisha are the perfect couple or he’s lying. Or they’re not perfect and he’s not lying at all. How could you not love this guy?
RR: you and your wife keisha… 15 years, and in your business that’s like 29 years! any secrets?
JC: ah, sense of humor, you know we’re really about family, we’re parents, we have a strong faith and our kids rock and, i mean we’ve been parents a long time and that’s a big part of the relationship so…
RR: did you guys always want a big family, did you both come from big families?
JC: i do, but i don’t think that was in the cards in the beginning. it just kinda happened that way but, you know, it’s a great blessing and i don’t remember life, really, before.
RR: are you getting nervous, cause now (your kids) they’re getting close to their teenage years.
JC: i’m not super-excited about that period. you know you just wana give them a certain self-awareness and sort of security with themselves that they don’t lean towards jerks and, you know, i mean there’s five of them they’re all gonna go where they need to go but, just keep them in check and hopefully they turn out good.
RR: how many girls? four out of the five right?
JC: four, four girls.
RR: wow, you’re outnumbered in your house brother.
JC: i know, i know. and they’re all strong latin women so it’s kinda…
RR: you’re quiet at home, aren’t you?
JC: yeah at times. yeah.
RR: do the kids know how famous you are, or do you guys try to keep them grounded…?
JC: they’re like whatever. they’re like whatever.
RR: so you’ve been married for 15 years and uh, who wins? who wears the pants in the family?
JC: fifty-fifty.
RR: fifty-fifty!!! aren’t you guys just the perfect couple? are you lying about all these stuff? we’re best friends, we really love family…
JC: no, no, we’re not perfect. we definitely have issues, too, at times. you know, its part of it, the ups and downs of a relationship. but what attracted me about my wife is that she was so cool and so secure with herself and yeah, good sense of humor. it’s worked so far, day by day.
I have just found out that Justin Chambers voluntarily checked himself into the psych ward of UCLA Medical Center in January for a sleeping disorder (he’d go for a week with only an hour of sleep. yup, tinext nya ako hehe.). It’s the same facility where Britney Spears was kept for bipolar disorder.
Yes I know it’s a sacrilege to have britbrit’s name right there with JC in the same paragraph, but by contrast I wanted to show how one can be a big star in Hollywood and not fly off the handle. I mean, where is the sense in courting publicity and then doing crazy things that get you more publicity and then losing your ground and blaming the publicity for it?
Justin Chambers is a sensible man (the key word being ‘man’), one of few who kept their wits about them and are riding the ups and downs of fame while staying above the weather.
I have nothing but the hots for him on all levels. I wanna cry.
I found myself trying to block the view to the ATM screen and tucking away the bills as soon as they came out, embarassed about having that much on my hands while the crowd around me have been camped out here since 2AM to claim the P500 Meralco refund.
For five hundred pesos, they made the trip down from their villages in the outskirts and tread the still slippery storm-ridden paths. For five hundred pesos, they spent half the night out in the cold, with nothing to sit on but wet pavement. For five hundred pesos.
The numbers I was trying to hide from their view was not much. Everyone knows a state salary doesn’t get very far. But surrounded by hundreds who will thereafter be braving hot sunshine and humidity standing in line for P500 pesos, a few thousand on my hands made me feel rich, and undeservedly so, because I work in an airconditioned office and sleep in a well-ventilated room and spend for car fuel possibly their entire living for a month.
