I was talking to Pam yesterday about “school clothes” and “going out clothes”. Pam recently bought a pair of Bettina Liano jeans which she had altered and had planned to pick it up at Bondi yesterday afternoon… upon asking her whether she’d wear it to class anytime soon I was taken aback when she answered me with a sharp “no”, followed by “it’s just school”. This got me thinking about how I live my life. Now I want to make it clear that I’m not judging Pam, I love the girl to bits, but I suppose after my dad’s near death experience a few months ago… the way I live life has drastically changed.

My parents never really bought me a lot of clothes or gave me a lot of money to buy my own clothes until a few years ago. Growing up, they spent more money on our extensive travels and educating us kids in some of the best schools than buying us an excess amount of cute outfits. I can’t speak for my siblings but whenever my parents would take me out shopping for new threads I’d always end up wearing the new clothes right away… I’d always be so eager to strut my stuff! Up to this day I still wear my new shoes to bed and “display” all my new clothes around my room for hours before putting them away. Now, I have to point out that out of my twelve years of primary and secondary schooling, I only had two years of which I WASN’T required to wear a school uniform (GO DRAGONS!)… so that’s another reason why my parents never really had to worry about buying us the hippest clothing. As this was so, I never really had clothes that I labeled as “going out clothes” and “school clothes”. My wardrobe was just so limited that I didn’t have that much of a choice!

Even now that that I have amassed SIX closets-full of clothes AND a suitcase of winter coats and sweaters in Sydney ALONE… (omg I am so going to hell for being so materialistic!) I still haven’t really categorized my clothes. I wear what I want when I feel like it. And why shouldn’t I?

After my dad’s near-death-experience earlier this year… I decided that I’d make the most of each and everyday. SO since I have returned to Sydney, I have been waking up earlier… going to church more… meeting up with friends more… staying in touch with lost friends more… STUDYING MORE (ha!, this has yet to be executed “correctly”)… telling my boyfriend and my family that I love them more… essentially, I’m TRYING to be a nicer person. (And let me tell you, this whole “My Name Is Earl” thing is a lot harder than you think!). So with this life makeover, I have decided to take care of myself more. This includes working out more, eating better and caring more about my appearance in a non-superficial way. Non-superficial you ask? Well, non-superficial in that I want to treat everyday as a celebration of life… I mean, just think… WHAT IF you kept some of your best clothes aside “for a special occasion” but died before you got to wear them out? It’d just be a waste!

So I say if you’ve labeled your clothes as “going out clothes” and “school clothes” or wear what you want, when you want... or whatever else… I say, “the true ornament of any person is virtue, not clothes or jewels." (Anonymous)

Drink Apple Juice.

I was a few months shy of my tenth birthday when the whole O.J. Simpson trial was going on so I didn't know very much about it until it came up a few years later, during a class discussion sometime in high school. Because of this, I find it difficult to make my mind up on whether I think O.J. is guilty or not... even despite having read up on it on numerous occassions! Had I been more aware of his case at the time of the trial, I would have probably been more inclined to pick a side... but trying to make the a decision as to how I feel about the whole "trash novel come to life" almost fourteen years after it happened is, surprisingly, extremely difficult. You'd think with all the bajillion articles written on it... the hundreds of case studies... all the books and countless interviews I'd be able to come to some sort of conclusion... but I honestly can't! I suppose it's difficult for me to decide because in my head I'm thinking, "it's over, what I think really doesn't account for much". I mean, the jury got together.. they decieded (consequently dividing a nation)... but hey, they did what they were tasked to do and that's it! Let Nicole and Ron (Goldman) rest in peace.

SO when I heard that O.J. was publishing a book on how he would've done it- that is, how he WOULD HAVE killed his ex-wife and friend- IF he had done it, I felt compelled to write about how much I DON'T like O.J.... NOT because I think he did it; but rather, because I think he is a disrespectful, inconsiderate, has-been PIG. What kind of sick asshole writes a book on how he would have killed his former partner? And I mean this guy isn't just your average Joe Schmo who was on trial for some murder... this is a former NFL start who was on trial for one of the most infamous murder cases EVER. HELLO!?! And come on man, regardless of whether he did it or not.. Nicole and Ron were MURDERED. They are DEAD. Isn't that enough? How about their loved ones- the people who they left behind because 'somebody' bruttally stabbed to death? Let them rest in peace for crying out loud! I don't care if O.J. did it or not... he WILL be judged sometime by The Man Upstairs. I just think publishing a book was a VERY bad move and it's release will only fuel debates and animosity towards him.

So what's the moral of this entry you ask?

Get the shirt HERE.

I'm so over this bloody film class.


So. Not. My. Thing.

Opps, she did it again.

Here are some of today's top stories for BBC's Americas section:

FEATURES, VIEWS, ANALYSIS
Beyond RumsfeldWhat are the Iraq options for the new US defence secretary?
In picturesA look back at Britney Spears's often turbulent life
Second chanceAfter 16 years, Nicaraguans pin their hopes on Ortega again

What. The. Hell.

Of all the things going on in the world that's what the BBC thought was more important than the politically sensitive U.S. trade deficit and its effect with U.S.-China relations. Um. Ok.

I detest hearing about celebrities on mediums such as CNN, BBC, and Sky becuase I sincerely feel that it causes people to be desenitized from issues that MATTER. So few of my peers know of the decades-old divide between the Turkish-Cypriots and the Greek-Cypriots... or of the escalating factional violence in Somalia that has triggered and influx of refugees in neighbouring Kenya where a child living in a camp along the border has been diagnose with polio... and yet they knew the name of TomKat's new bub minutes after the press release and of Chanel's hottest new shade for Winter 2006 before it even came out. Really, what does Keith Urban's drinking problem have to do with us?

I hate celebrity gossip. It's pointless! If I begin to tell you how much I hate tabloids I wouldn't know where to start... and even if I did start, I wouldn't know where to end. I don't buy tabloids because A.) I think it's a waste valuable time and money and B.) because I know I'll find out the lastest gossip while watching the 6 o'clock news anyway. I just think people should start focusing on helping eradicate the world from poverty instead of their chipped nails.

Back to the article though... you have to admit it's a bit odd to have such a credible, quasi-autonomous news broadcasting corporation such as BBC layout the latest world news in this fashion- Spears' article is sandwiched between two others on political figures whose decisions have some proufound influence on our everyday lives! I believe in the inherent goodness of man... but seriously, what has Britney done for us than provide good laughs? And ok fine, a picture of abs that we all want to shoot for?

Empty Churches

Empty church pews are depressing.

I went to church on my birthday earlier this week and seeing all the empty space made me even more homesick... given it was a weekday, I wasn't expecting too many people to attend mass... but the number of people at this particular city church still saddened me. And yeah fine, it was a city church... so you wouldn't expect many famalies but even on Sundays there still are still so many blank spaces... and then you've got to think about WHO is attending and it's mostly old folks...

Back home, most people attend mass during their lunch break or after work at 6PM... whenever I'm back in Manila my parents wake me up at 6AM for the 6:30 or 7AM mass... and although that does sound cheesy and boring- and all the annoying straight edge adjectives you could possibly think of- I truly believe that it's one of the best things in the world!

So seeing that people are missing out with the "family time" tied into going to mass really gets to me. I know this sounds incredibly preachy... and you're probably rolling your eyes but whatever. This is me.

I wish I was home.

S.H.I.T.

I was cleaning out my waytoofull inbox and came across this e-mail..

*******

Some exciting Historical information you need to know about shipping manure.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship. It was also before commercial fertilizer's invention, so large shipments ofmanure were common. It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by-product is methane gas. As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could(and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM! Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening. After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" on them which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane.

Thus evolved the term "S.H.I.T.", which came down through the centuriesand is in use to this very day. You probably did not know the true history of this word.

Sneaker Pimp

A friend of mine sent me this link the other day.


Imelda Marcos has infuriated me yet again. How can this woman- who together with her husband Ferdinand robbed the Philippine people of an estimated ten billion dollars back in the 70's- even conceptualize starting a fashion line "for the masses"?!? Let alone actually set it up!?!

A little history lesson...
Imelda Marcos is the wife of the late Ferdinand Marcos- president of the Philippines who served from 1965 to 1986.
The Marcos regime was marked by corruption, political repression and gross financial shenanigans, acts to which Imelda was almost certainly privy. During her time as first lady, Mrs Marcos was famed for travelling the world to buy new shoes at a time when millions of Filipinos were living in extreme poverty. The Marcoses were finally deposed in 1986 and fled to Hawaii, where Ferdinand died in 1989. Imelda Marcos later returned to the Philippines and- in spite of everything- was elected a legislative representative from her native district of Leyte. In October of 2001 she was arrested and formally charged with corruption and amassing a fortune of up to five billion dollars illegally during her husband's regime.

Obviously that's the way edited version but I feel like that is more than enough to highlight just how HEARTLESS this woman is. For a Wikipedia article on Mrs. Marcos click this..

Okay so this woman is setting up a business who's target market is the very people she stole from almost thirty years ago... is anyone else annoyed? And I can't say much about her grandchildren either. *sigh* Let's just say some schools need to implement stricter and more TASTEFUL "screening procedures" with student applications!

Anyway, I can't help but be annoyed with her. She has, arguably, set back the economic development of the Philippines by atleast 20 years. The Marcos Regime robbed the country at such a crucial point in history- at a time where we were actually considered to be more developed than Singapore and Hong Kong... and I need not say how developed those two countries are at the moment! And to think, we have a population that outnumbers Hong Kong 7:1 and 21:1 for Singapore. Now we're waaaaaaaaay behind... and it's laregly because she wanted money to build up her famed 3,000+ shoe collection!

For f*ck's sake, Imelda. Get a heart.

I ain't no hippie... BUT...

I'm not a tree hugger by an means but this article really got me thinking.

Coming from a third world country, the Philippines, and having lived in various developing countries in Southeast Asia all throughout my life, I never really paid much attention to environmental issues. I've always been a more "help the poor" type of person more than anything. I always sort of "forgave" developing countries who have relatively high pollution levels because in the back of my head I thought, "they have bigger problems on their minds." You know, such as corruption, poverty and terrorism. Whatever.

However, I was really shook up about how much we don't really care about enviromental issues! I was shocked to learn that, at the rate we are all going with overfishing and pollution, we could loose an alarming proportion of our fish population by 2048! I'd like to think I'll still be alive by then. You know, with grandkids, a porche and a large rest house by the sea. (IF THERE EVEN IS A SEA LEFT BY THEN.) How weird would it be to say, "you know... back in my day, Pluto was still a planet and we ate fish and lobsters- you know, those things you saw in the museum of natual history the other day."

And how about all those people whose lives depend on the fishing industry? I think this really hits home for me because just three generations ago, my great grandathers were fishermen! My name, in old skool Spanish, means "the fish"-> la pez. Pez... pescados. My family owns a few resorts in one of the 2,707 islands in the Philippines... just think, out of the 2,707 islands.. how many people's livelihoods depend on the fishing industry??? Hundreds upon thousands- if not millions of people will be affected on the most basic level.

****
"Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems... I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are -- beyond anything we suspected..."-Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
***

This guy obviously had some idea of the damage we are all doing to the environment... but the mere fact that a scientist can be SHOCKED about this trend is pretty crazy.

Shit, now I have to do something about this... UGH not enough time to be a good person!!!

More later, I can't think!