Category: General Musing

Yet another culture shock. When I was growing up, Olympics is a very big deal. The whole country seems to stop to watch, to cheer on our own team–and even other countries’.

2004 Athens Olympics in the U.S.?

*cricket chirps*

Yeah.

Nobody around me is as excited about the games. Actually, nobody seems to care that much.

Another reason to feel home sick. We used to stay up even during school nights to watch the broadcast of any major sports events. Sometimes Daddy would come wake us up when the games were on, and let us slept the rest of the night on their bed or at least in their room.

But here, it seems I’m the only one staying up half the night watching the ceremony and following the games. In 2000 the NBC coverage was horrible I didn’t even bother to try to follow it. Although the coverage is a lot better, but NBC still sucks. Most of the coverage is not live on the west coast but time delayed from east coast, and other “important” matches are broadcasted later for prime time or some juicy television spots.

I have to rely on Yahoo! Sports and the NBC Olympics site to keep up to date, or else I just get left behind.

On that note: Thailand won the bronze in women’s weightlifting under 48 kg (about 106 lbs.) Yeah. The lifter is about my size and she frelling lifted about 221 lbs. to win the bronze.

Tomorrow morning, all of Thailand will be watching our boxer compete. Our hopes and dreams. This year we also have high hopes for Taekwondo and possibly tennis.

Thai-land! Thai-land! Thai-land! Thai-land!

On additional, boy-crazy note: I watched E! Special presentation/interview with Tom Cruise during my cold medicine haze.

After all these years, after Brad Pitt and many other hunks, Tom still does it for me. His smile still quivers my heart and buckles my knees.

Tom was the first celebrity I had a mad crush on. Top Gun did it. And it was all about Tom all the time sometime in 6th grade. I think that may be where I developed affinity for white boys.

Well, actually that would split between Tom Cruise and Fabian, the boy from Germany I met at the international camp I went to when I was 12. Fabi and his little fang and blond hair. My friend Peg and I codenamed him “Shark”. I even managed to dance with him at our formal. Fancy that.

Back to Tom. Yeah. He’s still a hottie. After I watched his special on E!, I felt like…man only if I get to meet him, he and I are going to click and he’ll know that I’m the one…the real Mrs. Cruise he’s been looking for all these times. But then, I remembered the judge said something about being 50 feet away…

Brandon and I went to see “The Village” on Sunday.

I figured out the twist before it was revealed. I’m so damn proud!

And not to spoil it for those who hasn’t seen the movie, you can email me to ask when I figured it out.

There are moments where Lucius would come for Ivy, taking her hand and lead her to safety without even saying a word, and she knew it was him. Suddenly, Joaquin Phoenix was just hot.

Chivalry. True love. Quiet passion. That’s pretty hot.

Just when I was about to go to bed, I was hit by this low grade meloncholy. A somber realization with a dash of morbidity and a hint of brooding pessimism.

I think this all may have stemmed from a comment made by a friend from work today. “I believe I’m going to die alone,” he said.

He was thoroughly convinced that he would never find his life partner. According to him, his soulmate is his ex-wife, so he didn’t need to find that. He dreaded going through life without anyone by his side.

I tried to cheer him up the best I could. But he was dead set on it. There was not much I can do. But I did promise him that I will be there, yapping away by his death bed so he will definitely know he is not alone.

When someone doesn’t want to get cheered up, they can really really brood.

I did the same thing earlier on this evening too. I started to think these things:

I would never get out of the rut that I’m in. (See “Grrrr”). I could never get out of the debt we have. I could never afford a home. I would never be successful. And I made a horrible wife. I’m afraid my life has turned out to be God’s (doesn’t matter whose “God” it is) sad experiment with a perfectly good karma strain. With everything that is made up to be me, karma/cosmic or otherwise, I should’ve turned out better than this.

Then I also realized that it DEFINITELY could be a lot worse than this.

I could be roaming the streets of Bombay searching for scraps in the trash, sharing my sidewalk of a bedroom with dogs and cockroaches, being brutalized or forced into prostitution, and living with AIDS with no access to any medical attention.

Even in your darkest hours, there are always lights to get you through. In my case, my light came through the love of my life. It was a glimpse of Brandon draping across our bed, sleeping soundly in our bed that makes me realize I don’t have it all that bad.

I have been blessed, lucky, or perhaps good in the past lives. At the least I have all my limbs and am in good health, and I have Brandon. All the other worries are nothing compared to what other people may have.

And after I typed away on this thing, I snapped out of it.

Sleep is back to drag me through the night…

There is no better place for a subcription-only webcam than from our balcony. 
 
Our apartment situates above the apartment’s only hot tub in an 50% college student residents complex.  It’s been a bane to our existence with noise and smokes, but at certain times it does provides entertainment.
 
:: Classic Case ::
 
Brandon and I were watching television one evening.  There were a whole bunch of “kids” in the jacuzzi, chatting loudly because either they were drunk or needed attention.  One voice, high pitched and slightly Valley Girl accented, carried further than the rest.
 
“Yah, like he was totally different, you know.  Like, he was sexy, and like totally hot, and stuff. But he’s not like really sexual-sexual.  He was more like an intellectual sexual.”
 
I don’t think we need to discuss the value of education in today’s society…
 
Anyways.  Mostly it’s the people trying to get it on in the jacuzzi.  During the day.  At night.  After hours.  Drunk.  Sober.  You name it. 
 
The people living below us, right next to the jacuzzi, has a 9-year old son.   I won’t be surprise if they’d get the hell out of there when their lease is up.
 
Can’t wait to get out of here ourselves.  It’s a nice place to live and all.  But the college kids are driving us crazy.

Brandon and I helped his 14-year-old niece Lauren escaped from Norco last Friday. We’ve been getting her out of the house at least once a month for the past few months because she really needs to get away.

We had Brandon’s birthday bash on Sunday, and we were going to take her back that evening. But Lauren would’ve gone back to an empty house anyway. Besides, we were dead tired from hosting the party; we decided to have her over until Wednesday.

Today’s Wednesday. Brandon’s wiped. So we are keeping Lauren with us until Friday now. 🙂

What has Lauren been doing all day, you asked? She requires a beauty sleep of 12 hours. (I think I out-slept that as a teenager, competing with my dad to see who’d wake up later on Sundays.) She has the internet to play around with, a couple of PS2 games she wants to finish, and a thick book to read. Not to mention TV. We have food in the cabinet and Mountain Dew in the fridge.

She’s 14, on vacation from her life in the 909. The girl can do whatever she wants here for the week. I’ve been coming home at lunch to make sure she has food. Yesterday, she slept through the lunch break. Hehe. I’ll be taking her to have lunch with my friends at work tomorrow.

Today, with Brandon’s birthday money from his parents, we got to lavish Lauren with some new clothes (because we’re too lazy to do laundry), socks, and her summer reading book. Pretty much getting ready for high school freshman year this fall.

It’s the best thing in the world to see Lauren smile and have a good time. We hope we could motivate her enough to stay in school and do well. See, Lauren is a brilliantly smart kid. She has a love affair with books, and is probably one of the sweetest, wittiest, and oldest 14-year-old you’ll ever meet. But with all the family drama happening, in her own word, she just stops caring about her grades. Why should she if nobody else care?

We care. Care enough to let her escape, and help her with homework when she has them. I helped her with math once, and boy, was she thrilled when she got it!

If we win the lottery tonight, we are so going to keep her.