Lately, I’ve noticed that I have been using Facebook an increasingly number of times.

Surprising, considering that I do not have a Facebook account.

A friend wants to show me some pictures…she tells me she uploaded it on Facebook and I should just view them there.

On the other hand, a friend wants to get some pictures from me, and I plan to email it to her. She tells me, “Masyado madami yan. Ipost mo na lang sa Facebook.” I tell her I don’t have Facebook, she tells me to post it in Wendy’s Facebook. Gosh! Why didn’t I think of that? Duh!

I need to chat with someone…and although we have always used Yahoo, she informs me that she is now always online through Facebook. I tell her let’s just use Yahoo, she tells me, no, I now use Facebook! I inform her sternly that I don’t have a Facebook account, and she tells me, “Friends kami ni Wendy. Gamitin mo yung account nya!”

Thank God that my friends are Wendy’s friends, and yes, I just use her account. In fact, I have been logging in and out of Wendy’s account a number of times now that Wendy tells me, “Mama, why don’t you just create your own account?”

Hmmm…why not nga naman? I can reconnect with old friends, know what’s going on with my friends’ lives, see if some “likes” my pictures, tell the world how I’m feeling and what I’m doing, and view the pictures of friends! Sounds cool!

I know Facebook has a lot of features, and although most of my friends are in it, none of Facebook’s features really attract me [I'm weird in that way!]. Facebook has no appeal for me. First, I don’t know if I have enough friends. Kakahiya naman kung may Facebook account ako tapos 10 lang friends ko! He he! Second, I don’t really want to know what’s happening to everybody all the time, and I don’t want to stay connected all the time! Third, some stuff written in Facebook are too personal for my liking. [I'm old-fashioned in that I believe that some things should be left said privately to family and close friends.] Meaning, to avoid all these, I will refrain from logging in, and this would make setting a Facebook account sort of useless right? I guess Facebook is not really my cup of tea…I am not a hater, just a holdout.

In any case, if there’s something I want to “shout” to the world, or if there are some experiences or thoughts I want to share, I have my beloved, lovable bahay ni kumareng grace.

PS: Charing lang yan lahat. The truth is, takot ako ma-addict! He he!

The last time I watched a play was around 10 years ago, when I watched Miss Saigon. I wanted to watch it because, well, it was Miss Saigon.

I recently got the chance to watch another play [slash musical] and watched  Cats, Now and Forever at the CCP.

I wasn’t expecting much, for I am not really fond of musicals. I don’t even know what Cats was about. But right off the bat, Cats got my attention. The stage was a production in itself: an alley where the Jellicle cats convene for an annual tradition. As the play started and a pack of cats came dancing and singing, I was mesmerized.

Honestly, I was not able to follow the story as the play progressed. But what the heck? I was content in watching the great solo and group production numbers of the cast. The choreography was fantastic! The actors acted and moved like real cats do and did this while carrying out the specific personalities of their characters. Take for example my favorite charcter, Rum Tum Tugger, who was, in our terms, mayabang.  The actor was so effective because he had this swagger that he kept throughout the show. Kung baga isang tingin lang, alam mo na na mayabang sya!

And do I have to mention the singing? Everyone sang beautifully! I wonder how they get to sing that beautifully while dancing! I can’t even hear them breathing! The voices were cool to the ears, with fortissimos and pianissimos sang right on the money! The production numbers were simply amazing! Ang galing talaga!

And the finale? Gosh, it was spectacular number that I felt kahit yun lang, sulit ang binayad ko!

Special mention goes, of course, to our kababayan Lea Salonga, playing the outcast Grizabella. She sang Memory so beautifully that my hairs started to rise. It was one performance that will forever be in my “memory.” Grabe ang Lea Salonga, super galing at pang world class talaga!

Although there were some boring moments [because everything was sung and, as I have mentioned,  I had a hard time following the story], my Cats experience was truly a wonderful one. I enjoyed the show and am becoming a convert to plays and musicals. Andrew Lloyd Webber is really one musical genius.

Kudos to the Cats, Now and Forever cast! It was one great show!

The government initiative to transform the current education curriculum from from 6 years of grade school and 4 years of high school to 7 and 5 years, respectively, leaves me thinking hard. Will this be the best solution to the problems regarding education in our country?

Of course, I’m thinking of my daughter and the thousands of youth going to school, who are the future of our country. So any initiative to improve education, I’m all for it.

But adding two more years to basic education? I’m not for it.

I am a product of a school with seventh grade, and I can say with all honesty and from experience that it was not at all needed. Yes, it was learning. But our lessons were an integration of what we learned from Grades 1 to 6 and an introduction of first year high school. The former was not needed, whereas the latter can just be added to the first year in high school.

So I am confused. Why add two more years [and burden to parents and students as well] to schooling when it is the quality of education that needs focus? Instead of allotting budget to putting up additional buildings [adding two more years means more classrooms and facilities], hiring more teachers, or buying more books and supplies, why not allot budget for the training of teachers so that they are not left behind by their counterparts abroad in terms of knowledge and skills? Why not allot budget for the wages of teachers so they are not lured by higher offers abroad? Why not focus on the curriculum itself, deleting what is not needed and adding what is essential? Why not allot budget on activities that will increase the quality of education?

This for me is a classic case of quality over quantity. Focus on quality first; adding two years of schooling will be worthless if the same type of education is implemented, if teachers aren’t well equipped, and if the facilities are not conducive to learning [hello! 100 students in one classroom and just 4 hours of school?].

Just thinking out loud….

Oh, and by the way, Wendy is “so totally against” this initiative. Her reactions were more violent than mine.

I was answering one of the comments to a certain post when I realized how long it was and thought that it needed a post in itself.

This is my answer to the comment of wonderin to the post “It Pays to be Kind.”

wonderin: I appreciate all of u are doing kindness but i don’t [sic] think shouting abt it to everyone is just a little too much. destroying the sense of it all.

KG: Hi wonderin! First, I would like to thank you for dropping by my site. Second, yes, I agree that, normally, kind deeds are not for “shouting out.” It is one of those things where actions speak louder than words. In fact, in kindness, no words need to be spoken. It is carried out, it is felt. That’s where the power of kindness lies.

However, allow me to inform you that we write on acts of kindness rarely. In fact, most of us have never written about an act of kindness. At the most, some would have “told” of their kindness indirectly in the stories they tell. In my post “My Favorite 2008 Christmas Moment,” to which I refer in this post, I merely share the joy and happiness I felt when I was able to help a person and make that person happy. I have also done a post on random acts of kindness, but I wrote on its benefits.

These posts on were put up in response to the birthday giveaway of witsandnuts, who asked  us to write on the times we made other people happy. I thought of it as a brilliant idea. I do not know what the purpose of wits was, but I believe, and I’m sure she would agree with me, that the mere purpose of it was to inspire, to “motivate” people to be kind to others and give them the idea that making others happy is good for one’s soul.

Keeping your kind deeds to yourself is indeed the right and best thing to do. But there are times we need to get the word out. I cannot count the times I’ve been moved by stories on kindness in Chicken Soup for the Soul, which, I must admit, has contributed a lot to my advocacy on random acts of kindness.

Please be comforted by the fact that I’ve known most of these bloggers for some time now. They have kind hearts with only the sincerest intentions. And rest assured that our posts on kindness and making others happy are not merely to shout, as you have pointed out, to the world our kind deeds; not to shout, “Look at me. I’m kind. I made this person happy.” We wrote on these experiences to inspire. We are no politicians; we had nothing to gain by sharing these stories to each other. It was as simple as that, to inspire each other and other people. And for that alone, I think we did the right thing.

I hope you won’t think badly of me when I disagree with you that we “destroyed the sense of it all.” On the contrary, although I am not speaking for everyone who joined the contest or read the posts, we felt more compelled to be kind. These inspiring stories are motivations for us to make others happy and to treat others with kindness. And on another side, we take our joy in the idea that someone out there was inspired by our stories and had made the move to make another human being happy. And that, I think, is the sense of it all.

Our village has experienced a series of robberies and small thefts for the past few weeks. And because of this, the security level was increased by the administration to a higher level.

This is fine with me, but the inconveniences it has brought have made me bordering on “Thank God they’re doing their job” to “That’s too much!” Simply put, umo-over naman sila sa reaction.

The thing that is ticking me off is the sticker policy. Yes, our village has this “exclusive” sticker they sell for PhP250 (which was just PhP10 ten years ago). Fine with me. The problem is, since my father is in the car business, and cars come and go in our house, it is inevitable that I would be using cars that have no stickers. So every time I pass by, I have to explain. “Manong, kasi bagong bili ito.” “Manong, ibebenta din kasi ito.” “Manong, ang mahal kasi ng sticker nyo, wala akong pambili!” And it doesn’t help that I pass by THREE guard houses before reaching our house, which is sooooooo absurd because our house is just three blocks away from the main gate! That’s three explanations for a house that’s almost just a stone’s throw away from the main guard! Hello! And if before, I can do away with “face value,” now, with the constant changing of guards, some don’t recognize me anymore, hence the “questioning.”

There was even a time when, at the last guard house, from where our house is very visible, the guard asked to me leave my license even after explaining that I live on the street! “Aba manong, hindi ko to iiwan sayo ano! Eh dyan ako nakatira oh! Ayun oh, tanaw mo na!” Hay naku!

In addition, our driver, who is not stay-at-home, recalled once that the guard asked him to leave an ID with the guards. Sounds legitimate? Yes, but if you’re not going out of the village. Meron ba naman mag-iiwan ng ID na palabas ka nang village at pauwi na? Ridiculous! Eh talo pa nila ang guards sa Alcatraz!

I really don’t know if I will be happy with these developments. Well, maybe I am, of course. I know that they’re doing this for us, the residents, and for our security. But I can’t help become irriated at times because, as I have said, it is bordering on they’re doing their job to being irritatingly over-the-top. Yung tama lang naman po. After all, just right is fine with us.

Sayang siya…

How many times have we said this of someone? Or, worse, how many times have this been said of us?

Unfortunately, this has been said of me around 8 years ago, when I became pregnant while still in college. “Sayang siya” was a phrase I commonly heard then. “Sayang siya, matalino pa naman at mukhang malayo ang mararating, yung nga lang, nabuntis.” A friend’s mom told me that her daughter, my friend, told her, “OK naman yan si KG eh. Ok sa school, maabilidad, magaling makitungo sa tao. Sa pag-ibig lang bumagsak. Sayang siya.”

The reason I’m remembering this is I recently read an old article by  Cito Beltran entitled “What Matters”. It is an interesting article that might stir up something inside us, as rarely would we find someone who is not guilty of this.

So how many times have we thought of somebody else as “Sayang siya“?

Was it your class valedictorian who now stays at home as a housewife to personally look over the affairs of her home and take care of her children? “Imagine, valedictorian tapos magiging housewife lang pala. Sayang naman siya.”

Was it this rich, very pretty friend, who was once a crush-ng-bayan, who is now marrying a very plain, middle-class salesman [who's not even smart!] because they love each other? “Ano? Ang ganda-ganda nya! Ang daming nagkakandarapa maniligaw sa kanya na matatalino, mayaman, at guwapo! Bakit dun siya magpapakasal? Sayang naman siya!”

Or, as Cito Beltran states, was it this father who turned down a PhP300,000-a-month job simply because he values his time for his family so much that that amount of money wouldn’t entice him to sacrifice his family over a job that would literally take over his life? “Ok sana sya dun sa job. Qualified. Ang laki ng sweldo. Pinalampas pa niya! Sayang  naman siya.”

I know we would be guilty of this. At least once in our lives, there was this someone who was “sayang siya“…that someone who has fallen short of others’ expectation.

On the other spectrum, how many times have we said this of ourselves? When we feel na “napag-iiwanan na tayo ng mga kaibigan natin,” be it that they are all successful in their jobs, or that all of them have families already, or that we most of them are now abroad, do we say to ourselves, “sayang naman ako“? Do we feel the pressure to try to keep up just to try to prove that our lives are not “sayang“?

I hope that this phrase would be eradicated from the minds of people [I am trying to eradicate it from mine!]. For me, saying “sayang siya” is a way of looking down on other people, only it is masked with a dash of sympathy. People are products of what and who they are, of their choices, and of their experiences, so we have no right to say this, either of other people or ourselves. And let us remember, and I do hope we realize this, that people might actually be where they should and want to be. No life is a waste.

As for me, I can proudly say to those who thought of me as such 8 years ago, “Hindi ako sayang ano! I have done what I wanted to do. I have learned so many things. That event would ultimately shape who I am today. And I would never, ever think na ‘sayang ako‘.”

Forgive me for making “patol” to the Alec Baldwin issue.

No, I am not reacting to him or to what he said. I am reacting to the reaction of a government official. I only heard this on the radio, so the details are a bit vague, but I can still recall the exact words that made my blood boil.

According to the news, this government official said that since the Arroyo administration started, the Philippines has been ridiculed in an international scale. This government official further said that we have been associated with dirty jobs such as being slaves, maids, and mail-order brides.

I almost bumped the car in front of me. I got dizzy with anger. Excuse me, but who the hell told this person that being a maid [or slave] was a dirty job? Who? On top of that, did this government official actually believe that his job was a “clean” one?

I’m willing to bet my life that he has a maid employed in his household. I pity them; they must be working in the mud for them to be regarded “dirty”. And doesn’t he know that thousands of families in Philippines [and millions around the world] cannot maintain a household without the help of a maid? In fact, some families are so dependent on their helpers; after all, who does the cooking, the laundry, the cleaning, the ironing, the washing of dishes, and the overall maintenance of the house? We need them, for goodness sake!

I’ve never regarded being a maid as a dirty job. In our house, helpers are considered part of the family. Mas madalas pa nga kami napapagalitan na mga anak kesa sa mga yaya namin. They make a “clean” living out of sheer hard work. Yes, they clean our bathrooms, pick up after the poops of our babies, and do the jobs we wouldn’t want to do. But does this mean the job is dirty?

Drug pushing, human trafficking, kidnapping, stealing from the kaban ng bayan…now those are the dirty jobs.

Excuse me for overreacting, pero “kung hindi nyo po alam, ang aking lola, si Apo Matea, ay namasukan bilang katulong upang maitaguyod ang kanyang pamilya…” Ay, si Manny Villar pala yun. He He! At least, someone in his right mind is proud of being related to a “maid” [I am not campaigning for him, by the way.]. Anyway, I have very high respect for persons who take on jobs regarded as dirty by most: maids, cleaning personnel, waiters, construction workers, etc.

In addition, in my book, maids are way, way, way above government officials.