I’ve come to believe that the condition of my bedroom reflects my current state. I’m not a clean freak, but I do tidy up periodically. In the interim between my bursts of Stepford Wife-like activity, my room deteriorates from “spic-and-span” to “lived-in” to “monsoon aftermath.” When it’s neat, I’m neat, but when it’s a mess, I’m a mess.

There’s no set trigger for me to start cleaning up, but last week the switch flipped to “On” and I put my room to rights. Each time I do this, it’s like hitting my internal reboot button, instantly clearing all the collected junk from both room and mind. It’s invigorating and catharctic and makes me feel like I can take on anything. Plus, I have a floor again — at least, one I can actually walk on and not trip on piles of clothing or paper.

Having a floor is important when one wants to practice dance moves in the privacy of one’s room. I know it’s only been a few posts since I talked about the hiphop dance class I attend weekly, but the gym pulled the schedule rug from under us. Now, instead of Hiphop Grind, we have Nike Rockstar Bollywood. Yes, you read that right: Bollywood, and it’s being launched in Fitness First gyms in the Philippines this month. This means that instead of just straight hiphop and R&B; steps, we’ve got to master stuff inspired by Indian dance. And we’re stuck with this choreography for the next two months starting from today.

I’m not aiming to be the next Aishwarya Rai, but I felt like such a goof today since I kept making mistakes and basically messing up on the floor. What made it doubly embarrassing was that there were only five of us in class, counting our instructor (who is still the same guy who led us in Hiphop Grind). I really did stick out like a sore thumb, to overuse a cliche.

I made it through the class without dying of shame, and I’ll probably be back for more punishment next week since I’ve got nothing better to do on Monday mornings. Ü Seriously speaking, though, I enjoy the challenge of mastering something new. The instructor warned us that the moves are asyncopated and aren’t based on the 4- and 8- beat counts that we’ve been used to. He wasn’t able to show us the entire routine today because we kept messing up, but I’m sure we can clean it up eventually. Now that I’ve practiced the new moves on my clean bedroom floor, I find that they’re not as difficult as I initially thought. Hopefully, enough practice will keep me from turning the dance floor into a disaster zone.

UPDATE (July 13): Today was the formal launch of the Nike Rockstar Bollywood workout at the Fitness First Ortigas branch, and I went so I could get the extra practice time. The workout is divided into four parts: the warm-up, the across-the-floor, the main choreography, and the cool-down. The steps are definitely easier the second time around, and I realized that most of the later move combinations were introduced in the across-the-floor section (where you do a move and try to work your way across the dance floor at the same time) and in the warm-up.

We had a different instructor since it was a different time, but I was the only one who had done the Bollywood workout prior to the launch. Of course, I really tried to work it (teacher’s pet much? Ü). After class the instructor and I were both at the front desk for a time, and he tapped my shoulder and said, “See you next week, okay?”

Oh, yes, you will.

UPDATE (July 18): They rescheduled the Nike Rockstar workout to Tuesdays at 6:30am, so I can still get my Hip-Hop fix on Mondays. Woohoo!

Check the Nike Women Philippines and Fitness First Philippines websites for more details about this workout and class schedules.

Tags: Fitness First, Nike Rockstar Bollywood

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People say that every birthday celebrates another year of new experiences. That is true; in my case, this is the first year I don’t have a concrete thing to do. For the past 22 years, I had school, and now… I don’t. I feel kind of aimless.

Instead of looking to January 1, I usually use my birthday as the jump-off point for introspection on my life, and I have to say I’m a little blue right now. I feel like nothing I’ve done matters. I’m doubting myself and fearing the unknown future.

But God catches me, and I cling to Him. I may doubt myself, but in Him I have no reason to doubt. He is the certainty amidst my uncertainty, the One I trust to lead me where I cannot yet see.

(On this day last year and two years ago)

Tags: Birthdays

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I’ve been trying to lose some excess weight since… um, I guess, ever. I’ve always been on the full-figured side for people in my age group, so I’m no stranger to calisthenics and aerobics and basically anything that gets me to move my “humps” (or “jelly,” if you prefer the Destiny’s Child term). I used to work out using home videos, particularly the MTV “The Grind” workout series. The “Grind” workouts featured dance moves that were fun to execute even as I all too easily broke into a sweat.

When Marielle and I received our gym memberships at Gold’s Gym last July, I started using the treadmill and elliptical trainer machines for my cardio workouts. I didn’t get to bust a move much in the ten or so months that followed; the Gold’s branch we went to did have some aerobics and dance classes, but they were always scheduled during times we had to be elsewhere.

Our parents are enrolled with Fitness First, so when a promo came up, they grabbed Passport memberships for Marielle and me beginning last May. Since then, we’ve been exploring the group exercise opportunities that the Fitness First gyms have. I love the Les Mills BodyJam workouts they’re offering because the choreography is fresh (changed every three months), and after one or two tries on the dance floor I pick it up easily. I also attend a hiphop class where the choreography is more technical and changes weekly, but the challenge is what gets me out of bed on Monday mornings.

Let me tell you a little bit about my instructors, though I won’t name names. Let’s talk about my first BodyJam instructor. He’s this guy who’d show a new move twice or thrice, and then kick off into a full-speed rendition of it. This is great for people who’d already been through the choreography once before (say, a previous class), but I incidentally had started going to his class three weeks before new choreography was to be released. Thankfully I was able to keep up, but he liked to show off more complex moves on stage.

When BodyJam’s new choreography was released last week, I took a BodyJam class where he was the substitute instructor. Amazingly, he was focused on the workout at hand; there was no grandstanding this time, except at one point in the workout he came down off the stage and danced with me. Heh. Maybe I was feelin’ it too much? Ü He’s going to be away for two months. Guess who his sub is? My hiphop class instructor. This guy can really move, but he just can’t help himself and tends to yell his instructions when he’s really pumped up. I guess it’s his way of energizing himself. After all, it’s pretty hard to stay motivated for a 6:30am class, and he had to do that twice in a row this week for the hiphop and BodyJam classes.

If there’s one thing I don’t want to do in a dance class, it’s to draw attention to myself. When that happens, thoughts start coming into my head, like “Am I trying too hard? Do I look like I’m from the Pretty Fly (for a White Guy) video?” I suppose these instructors take note of people who look like they’re enjoying themselves, though. Two weeks ago I was attending a BodyJam class and the female instructor set up a dance-off, and she put me on the front lines. After a bout of stage fright where I messed up mightily, I really got into the groove and left class with a big smile on my face. Or maybe that was the endorphins. Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands!

One thing I can say: this isn’t me working out in my living room with the shades drawn anymore. With my videos the instructors couldn’t see me and I didn’t have people shaking booty alongside me. In dance class, I get feedback and encouragement from the instructors, and when I mess up a move there are other people who can see. Thankfully they’re usually also messing up and don’t notice.

Tags: Dance, Exercise, Fitness First, Hiphop

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While we may not all fall victim to a maliciously poisoned cup (like the Queen in Hamlet), eating out has risks of its own. I’m talking about food poisoning, of course; I’ve just recovered from a bout of Salmonellosis and I’ve got to say, it was not pretty.

Last Saturday, my family and I were at Megamall and decided to have some hot chocolate at Cafe Xocolat for our afternoon snack. Since the taza de xocolat we had all ordered is an extremely rich and heavy drink, my mom asked my dad to purchase some salty food from a nearby Chicharon Espesyal stall. He bought a small paper bag of pork chicharon (rind crisps) and another bag of chicken skin crisps. While Mama and Marielle indulged in the chicken skin crisps, Papa and I ate the pork chicharon. I was able to snatch only three pieces from the bag before my dad finished the whole thing.

I started feeling weird around 9pm that night, while Marielle and I were at Sugarnot having a late dinner with friends. The nausea only worsened as the night progressed, and I begged to go home two hours later.

The next morning, I felt feverish and had no desire to eat. At breakfast, I found that my dad had spent the rest of the previous day in the bathroom. I didn’t feel much better than that, and after breakfast I had to go lie down and sleep, or else I felt I would start vomiting. I slept most of the day away, didn’t eat lunch, and had a piddling dinner before tottering off to bed at 8pm.

We figured it must have been the pork chicharon that did us in, because both my mom and Marielle had felt no ill effects — and they had the chicken crisps, not the chicharon. My dad and I were both knocked down by the food-borne illness, but our symptoms were different in intensity. While I only experienced nausea, fever, a bad headache, and loss of appetite, my dad ran almost the whole gamut of symptoms representative of salmonella poisoning: fever, abdominal pain, headache, nausea, diarrhea, and loss of appetite.

This morning, my dad still couldn’t get out of bed. I awoke feeling much better and raced off to hiphop class at the gym with my sister. My appetite still hasn’t returned to normal, but that’s to be expected for a few days more.

In any case, I lost two whole pounds, which makes me feel just a teensy bit better about the whole ordeal. Just a teensy bit.

Tags: Food Poisoning, Health, Weight Loss

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I enjoy looking at my visitor stats just because it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling to know that people actually do read what I have to say in this little pocket of the Internet. Ü Some come in through direct links from fellow bloggers, while others stumble in through search engine results that may or may not give them what they were looking for. While the search strings I get generally aren’t as cringe-worthy as Ade’s, I do get some interesting hits.

• my poor hungry experience philippines essay: Uh, okay. I’m not Claire Danes.
• puppy in my pocket sets: How cute!
• bikini girls in boracay: I should have expected this search result given my posting about bikinis and Boracay in the same month. Still, pervy!
• nothing is sound CD trojan: Yep. I wrote about that.
• scrufus: Hi J!
• Noelle “This Summer”: You really wanna know what I’ve been up to this summer? Heh.
• free URL file+switchfoot+music+listen online: You might be interested in downloading Switchfoot’s free unreleased song, “Daylight To Break.”
• I’ve got a whole in my pocket, my pocket, my pocket lyrics: Keep on looking, man. But remember, “whole” and “hole” are not the same thing. Need I point you to my grammar rant?
• a women using a rocket pocket: EEEEWWWW!
• dont go to the beach the next day if you have a sunburn: Point taken. I’m still peeling.
• supergirl cosplay: Interesting. I really should post up that old pic of my toddler self in costume.
• girls on coco beach: I shudder to think what this search string really means. Get away from me, you perv. Far, far away.

Despite some creepy search hits, I like knowing who’s reading. So, how did you get here?

Tags: Internet, Search Results

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First off, let me say that I avoided making this post yesterday because, you know, 6/6/06 is t3h ebil!!!1oneone!1! Oh wait, the only evil part is releasing a crappy The Omen remake and making Julia Stiles play a mommy role.

I was just really lazy and unmotivated yesterday, and today’s subject is a dead horse beaten to such a bloody pulp that I’ve put off writing about it for as long as I possibly can. This is why you’ve had to suffer through painful opening paragraphs that have absolutely nothing to do with what I’m writing about, other than the fact that The Da Vinci Code is, like the new Omen movie, an evil, life force-sucking vortex for commercialism.

Oh, good. You’re still here. I just wanted to catch your attention about the whole phenomenon that is Dan Brown’s take on Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and a certain Renaissance artist. (Here, read the whole load of informative DVC links Brownpau’s accumulated.) Just so you know, I read the book back in 2004 by borrowing an illustrated copy from a friend. While I appreciated the pace and twists of the novel, in order for me to be able to suspend my disbelief, my fiction should be sprinkled with factual information, not spackled with baseless assertions. Shouting “it’s historical fact!” several times isn’t enough. Also, Dan Brown can’t write.

Still, regardless of my lack of affection for it, The Da Vinci Code is a huge phenomenon, definitely affecting people’s lives. Imagine going on a tour of Europe — okay, maybe just France and the United Kingdom — and using a work of fiction to set your itinerary. You don’t need to imagine it: there are many tour operators offering a Da Vinci code tour, and if you’re not willing to shell out the Euros for a real live tour guide, there are self-tour guidebooks floating around out there.

(I’m well aware that there are tours of places where famous authors lived and where they set their novels; the Jane Austen Society of North America schedules tours of England. Still, Ms. Austen was very detailed and accurate about the England she wrote about. I can’t say the same for Mr. Brown.)

Apparently, attaching the name “Da Vinci” to anything is a surefire way of getting people’s attention. For example, spam emails have gone out inviting people to join a book club and offering a free copy of the book as incentive. (I wouldn’t sign up for anything that offered me a free Dan Brown book, but that’s just me.)

And in possibly the most ridiculous and most recent attempt to capitalize on the hype surrounding the book and movie, some baker created a diet based on the Golden Ratio. Sure, the disciples of Pythagoras believed this number Phi expressed an underlying truth about existence, the architect Le Corbusier based his system of architecture on the number, and Plato wrote some gobbledygook about two things being able to join together completely through the adaptation of this proportion. Still, nothing seems to be able to move units like “Da Vinci,” and the author and publishers of the diet book are hoping “to pique the interest of Da Vinci enthusiasts and weight-loss seekers alike.”

The diet is 20 percent protein, 52 percent carbohydrates, and 28 percent fat. I guess in this low-carb world you can’t blame a baker for trying to create a market for his goods. This should also be good news for the established Italian pasta brand Da Vinci. Possible tie-ins should not be ignored. (There’s a Flying Spaghetti Monster joke in there somewhere, but I can’t juggle two heresies at once, dammit!)

Behold the awesome moneymaking power of da Vinci! Even better, behold the awesome attention-getting power of da Vinci! Let’s face it, why else did you read this post to the end?

Tags: Bandwagon, Da Vinci Code, Hype

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