Of Cellphone Snatchers, Pokpok Shoes, and Oishi Pillows

Kaeiy is listening to That Song In The Coke Ad

Thursday was a very tough day for me. Thursday, I was in emotional turmoil. Refusing to let go. Stubborn me. I refused to let go of something that practically asked to be let go. I could not. I refused to let go without a fight. I never go down without a fight. My Comm 2 prof knows that (fat old b*tch!) and I proved to her that even if she gave me three consecutive singkos for being absent during crucial reports I could still get to a 2.0 in her darned class. Persistence is key, I knew. Persistence, courage, a true-blue stubborn spirit and a very very very hard head!

At the end of the day, neither let go. I didn't. Walang bumitaw. Walang binitawan. All's well and good. Thank goodness!

But that Thursday afternoon, I unwillingly said goodbye to my cellphone. I did not, however, let go without a fight. I held on and twisted my arm around to grab it back. Sad to say, I went into EXternal shoulder rotation instead of INternal shoulder rotation. Wrong move. I ended up with an empty hand and a mildly sprained wrist. He then proceeded to WALK away (more like swagger away!). Kung hindi lang malaki yung bag ko nung araw na yun, hahabulin ko pa yung pakshite na yun at bubugbugin ko pa! Kaso naisip ko, may mga kasama yun. Ayoko ata masaksak! If I had him stranded beside the vehicle I was in, I'd probably whack him right then and there. Oh well... phone's gone and I'm alive so let it go. Sure... let it go... Grrrrr... (On a side note, I have a new SIM and a new number now. I'm starting to hunt down my old contacts and will start stalking them via text soon. Harharhar...)

-o-o-o-o-o-

Pokpok shoes. That is what my mom calls sneakers that are folded at the back and turned into slippers. Something like slip-on sneakers. She calls them such because some eight years ago, a well-known (hence, notorious?) group of teenaged females in our area (collectively labeled "pokpoks" by the entire neighborhood) wore their sneakers folded at the back. The thought just occurred to me. Sorry. Hehehe. I know the entry isn't making much sense.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Anyway, for three days, I endured the harrowing double-edged sword experience of 1) using an archaic, hard-as-concrete-keypad Nokia 6150 and 2) being "line-less"...therefore had to use a pre-paid Globe SIM! Waaaah! Que Horror!

In those three days, I consumed more than 500 bucks worth of prepaid credits. To think I didn't use my phone to CALL! All I did was text! Wah! Never never never again! I will forever be a line subscriber. For someone who has had a line since time imemorial (ok fine, since I got my first phone seven years ago...which was...tantanaran! A Nokia 5110 which I named Gypsy after I painted the battery and the case with glitter nailpolish and stuck body stickers on it), going pre-paid felt like going into battle with a gun... an unloaded gun!

So I got a second hand SE T230 from (Uncle) Rodj's officemate dirt cheap and yesterday, I went to Globe to get my new SIM. They didn't have the last 4 digits I wanted (one was not allowed for my line bracket or something... it's intended for the lower end plans, as I understood. And the other available number was blacklisted. Ang daya! Lagot sila saken pag nag-apply ako ng bagong linya sa May! I demand THAT number!) so I settled for the next best thing. Got that one, fortunately. So now, I am back in contact with the rest of the world... well, anyway, I am back in contact with those whose numbers I either 1) memorized by heart (tatlong tao lang yan: si Espresso, Tequila Breath, and my best friend Pao) or 2) was able to write down somewhere somehow sometime in the past.

There! So much for my weekend! Dumaan na ang Sabado at Linggo! Next week, on Thursday (I'm beginning to detest Thursdays!) will be my classes' turn for Parent-Child Interaction Day. Whazzat? Think of it this way: I will be conducting my "usual" classes"... with the parents (and their other relatives) watching us! Wah! Directress said not to be afraid. To quote the Great Teacher Lilian, "They are here to see how their children are, not to criticize you. So don't cover up. Be as true as possible. Show them how their children are in school." Right! Right? Wah!

-o-o-o-o-o-

Horny Angel, a part of my Pisay barkada once commented "Bakit hindi ganun ka-nformative yung blog mo? Parang pira-prasong kwento!" So I explained to her that a blog is a blog. It's not my WHOLE life. It's more of... about 10% of my life. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. There are some things in this blog that I let slip for one reason or another, that I never would under different circumstances but did anyway. But it is never the big picture. They're but thumbnails, so to speak. But whatever little bits I say here, they're all true. Not the whole picture. Just bits and pieces. But genuine bits and pieces. As I said to her, a blog isn't everything. Even my journal (a notebook that I write in... as in sulat-kamay) is only about 80% of my thoughts.

How come? Well, try as I might, even if I work on a computer (which I have attempted in the past, but I found that the smell of paper and ink is a crucial element in the art of journal-keeping), my fingers are never fast enough to keep up with the speed at which my thoughts bounce around in my head. I am writing down Thought One while Thought Two forms then branches into Thoughts Two-point-one and Two-point-two. And when I finish expounding on Thought Two and its two offspring, Thoughts Three and Four have flown by at the speed of light and I am grappling to connect Thoughts Five and Six to the just-passed-me-by Three and Four.

Very frustrating. Indeed.

-o-o-o-o-o-

I am currently hooked on Oishi Pillows. Well, I have been for a long time. It's only last night that I realized how hooked I was (well, me and my sister Kritz). We bought ALL the Oishi Pillows that a nearby sari-sari store had. And when they ran out, we trekked to the next store to buy out their stock. All in all, we (meaning me, my mom and my sibs) ate about twenty bags of Pillows. Ulk!

So much for losing weight in time for this summer's Dance and Movement Class which Kaye and I will teach. Plus, I plan to go back to rowing by the middle of next month so I have about two weeks to get my endurance up a notch. When I get back to rowing, I'm positive I'll be huffing and puffing my way through about 10km of hard paddling. Huwah! Thank goodness I've quit smoking!

-o-o-o-o-o-

Trivia for the day: External rotation (ER) of the shoulder results in the inside of your arm, including the biceps, facing out. Internal rotation exposes your elbow and your triceps. In a cellphone-grab situation such as the one explained above, doing internal rotation (IR) will allow you to use your biceps to flex (bend) your elbow towards your body, effectively giving you the upper hand in getting your phone back (and twisting your assailant's arm into ER) As a bonus, you can hit the assailant's elbow OUT since he is in ER, he is liable to sprain his elbow if the blow is hard enough. Ah, sweet revenge!