the upside of qutting my job

so i have a three friends and an acquaintance who just came to visit thailand. nope, they were not together. they dont even know each other. for some reason, they came at the same time. my thai friend came to bangkok for the Ramadan. (he's fr the south, studying in indonesia.) my acquaintance came back to work here again. the two others are just visiting.

but that's not the point. the point is, when they saw me, they had one common comment. that i have gained weight. which to me is a breakthrough. cause i have always been ectomorphic. meaning, i am basically slender. no matter how i eat or get enough sleep. it's my metabolism. it's fast. im the kind of person who sweats a lot. which is healthy but sometimes inconvenient and uncomfortable.

and i am also very active. i walk fast. my physiology teacher once told me that if i dont slow down i might end up having hypertension and mycardial infarction. i have finally learned how to slow down a bit. thanks to my stay in thailand. it's almost a crime to walk fast even if you're catching a bus.

my thai friend also commented that i look better than when he first left for indonesia. "you look younger than me," he said. which is an exaggeration because he's only 25 or something. but i get his point. he used to have fair skin, now he's darker than me. (he said indonesia is even hotter than here in thaland.)

i used to have a very stressful job. freakingly stressful. and the school where i used to teach was very hot. uncomfortably hot. after sometime, i finally called it quits. had to leave before i go mental. (but also because my school is very far from where i live and i'd rather change job than change apartment. sometimes getting a new job is easier than getting a decent apartment. just sometimes...)

now im kinda relaxed. that is what makes me look fresher, i guess. i'll just face the consequences of leaving my work once my savings run out, hahaha.

for now, im reading my physical therapy books. im just catching up. i got new editions of some of our textbooks. im currently reading a 7 cm thick textbook and it's kinda frustrating because it takes me and hour just to read half of a chapter. but im also having a good time reading it. i am contemplating on having a refresher course or something. maybe...

cultural acculturation

yesterday, my thai friend from the south asked me for a short dinner together because he has to go back to his hometown ahead of his schedule. he's been in bangkok for about a week now but didnt have the chance for us to meet because he plans to stay here longer anyway. but the confirmation to his scholar application to take study master's degree has been approved and needed to go down south immediately. my friend has been in indonesia for more than a year, studying bahasa indonesia in preparation for whatever plan he has.

anyway, while we were talking, his phone rang, picked it up, and talked. i was surpised to hear him talk so loud...ly.

"how come you talk so loudly like that?" i told him.

"yeah. my mom is also kinda pissed at how my behaviour has changed," he replied.

i pictured myself. when i first got here, i had the same problem. from where i came from, people seem to talk quite loudly. of course, we dont notice our manner of doing things until we get exposed to a culture or people different from our own.

thai manners are very much intertwined with the buddhist principle of walking the middle path. so most thai people are basically soft spoken, walk slowly, and eat slowly too. to not go to the extremes of either being too apathetic or too agressive. it took me awhile to learn how to walk slowly and talk softly (though still not as soft as the average thai). the eating slowly part, i cant seem to teach myself with that.

and there i was, shocked at how my friend have changed. i dont know the extent of his acculturation because we were only together for about an hour. and i dont know much about indonesian culture either. it just surpised me now when i hear somebody talk so loudly like that. and now find it improper sometimes. five years in thailand. maybe enough to be a little acculturated with the culture.

and did i mention that this same person used to rebuke me all the time with my apparent arrogant manner? one time, some years ago, we were on an ordinary bus. and it was really hot. so i kept saying, "hot. really hot." showing in my getures how irritaed i was. here was what he told me. "it's not you're body feeling hot. it's your heart." (jai roon was his term... jai is heart, roon is hot. meaning it's my atttitude. my behaviour. you are jai roon if your irritable, impatient, aggressive.)

but being bi-cultural has its downside sometimes. you try to adapt but sometimes you also want to assert you own point of view as taught by your own culture. my culture is semi-confrontational. thai culture is non-confrontaional. but im learning... how and when to be thai. and when and how to be more myself.

but for what it's worth, i still dont like spicy food. and i dont seem to have plan adapting to my taste buds to it. that's the point.

joshua

i just got an email from my brother telling me that my nephew, joshua has got an award in his school. and even has his picture posted on the school's bulletin. how cool is that?

actually, that should not be surprising as we have other nieces and nephews who constantly get awards in their schools. except that joshua and his parents happen to be in australia. an asian kid making waves in a western country is really something. that kid coming from my family line is another thing. makes us proud.

makes me even more proud that joshua and i actually had some bonding of sort. he may not actually remember me though because he was still a toddler then. i left my job that time and was contemplating to come back to thailand, my second home. so i stayed in our family house for a whlie. my brother (jay) and his family also just left saudi arabia to come back to our hometown. joshua was just learning to walk that time. so i took care of him a lot. we got pretty close as one my favorite part in physical therapy is pediatrics. meaning, i love kids and i know a few tricks on how to make a child active or relax.

my borother and i were pretty close when he was a child. we have a 6-year gap so i took him eveywhere and our mom let me take me my bro to the movies a lot. eventually, as we grew up, we found our clans. our separate group of friends. he loved basketball. i loved rock music. we still do to this day.

so this blog is dedicated to joshua. our family's pride. and to his parents for giving him the best care and affection. and if not for the many bad decisions i have made, i should now have had a kid of my own by now. never too late, eh.

my life would suck without you

hold your horses... this is the title of the first single off kelly clarkson's lates cd "all i ever wanted."

i am not really a fan of kelly clarkson. and im not really a big fan of commercial top 40 songs. but there are a few of her songs that i like. and that was when her music started to evolve into the pop/rock genre. if there's one thing that i like about her music is that she mostly doesnt sing about cheesy, saccharine-coated love songs. instead she sings about doomed relationship and the pain and the struggle to move on that go along with it. songs like 'because of you', 'behind these hazel eyes,' 'never again', among others. much like alanis morissette (lyrically, in some ways), only more PG as opposed to alanis' somtimes R rated, sometimes blasphemous lyrics. (hey, that's how i see it. no judgement or anything).

when kelly traded her semi-gothic, semi-melacholic portrait in her album "my december" to a bright, almost bubblegum image in her latest release, i thought she's trying to follow no doubt's gwen stephani who went sexy-pop when she went solo. but when i heard her first single, i realized the american idol lass still rocks. out of desperation to get a pop/rock album that would be uplifting musically, i bought her cd despite the fact that i still dont like the album cover and the cd jacket in general. the disc is surpringly pleasurable. it's actually my present guilty pleasure of sort.

the song 'all i ever wanted' is one of my most favorite, along with 'if i cant have you' with the self-destructive chorus "if i cant have you... i dont want anyone. if i cant have you... then only damage has been done." ouch!

and let's face it... she's got really awesome voice. although she didnt stretch her voice to its full potential here just like with 'behind these hazel eyes.' it's still a good work of art, the album. just dont let the album cover discourage you. after all, you really cant judge a record by it's album cover...

Alternative Releases

Thought you might be interested, some of the great alternative bands who started out in the mid-90's when alternative rock was in bloom are releasing their albums this August, except for Vertical Horizon who's new cd will be out sometime in September.

Sugar Ray is famous for their ecclectic approach to music. From rock, to funk to whatever. These guys have had top 40 hits, so now they make music for the art and fun of it, not just making radio-friendly, commercial songs. Their album is titled "Music for the Cougars."

Third Eye Blind is responsible for the bouncy and jumpy 'Semi Charmed Life.' Who wouldnt know that song? I still play it to this day. But they are also known for their creative songwriting, thanks to frontman Stephan Jenkins. Their new cd "Ursa Major" (whatever that means) is something to look forward to.

Vertical Horizon's type of adult alternative music is difficult to ignore. Easy to listen to. New album is "Burning the Days."

Muse. I am new to Muse music. i was instantly captured by a song that was playing in a coffee shop. The song was 'Starlight.' So i checked it out and found out it was from the band. I did a little investigation on the band and found out that they use electronic hooks in their music. I became an instant fan. New album is called "The Resistance."

Other alternative biggies from the 90's who are having new releases this month are Collective Soul, Sonic Youth, and Sister Hazel.


So there, let's see who will bring really good music to the table.

some days are like that...

yesterday was one of those days... you know when life plays its jokes and tricks on you? we got a share of that a lot. or I get a share of that a lot.

first i planned to do my exercise because the last time i had it was last sunday. when i got to the gym, i found out i forgot my gym shorts. so i went to the park instead to let time pass by. i had my alternative... to get a massage. been planning it for sometime cause ive been noticing really taut and tensed muscles on my upper back and neck. it turned out, the massage was freaking torturous. just a moderate pressure on the trigger points makes me want to scream. [ok, im a little exagerrating.] but seriously, the massage hurt. really hurt. if it wouldnt be therapuetic, i would just end it even if i registered for a one-hour package. but for what it's worth, trigger points in my calf muscles were spotted, something that i was unaware.

finally it was over. so i went for a noodle at a famous noodle stand. normally, i would tell food sellers anywhere to put just a little chilli in the food i order. here in thailand, food that they would describe as "not spicy" is actually spicy enough for non-spicy food eaters. but last night i forgot to tell the cook. so i got a realy spicy noodle that i only got to eat less than half of the bowl (of the noodles, not the bowl itself!) i was sweating profusely and felt like my tongue was about to burn! and i ended up being hungry. i had another little meal at home, thankfully.

many years in thailand and im still not used to eating spicy food. a little spicy is ok. thai-spicy is so out my taste. and i dont have any plan of getting used to it cause i never will get use to it, period.

if that was not enough, i also didnt get enough sleep. i dont know why. ok maybe i know. plus, maybe i was replaying subconsciously the turturous day i had...

good thing is... when we wake up after a bad day (or night,) things can get better again. today was a lot better. the morning was super...

Finally Got Myself Back to the Gym

so yeah, finally got myself back to the gym. it took me about ten months before i finally had my butt hitting those padded exercise machines again. been meaning to for a long time but kept on postponing. once you stop doing what you used to do, it kinda take extra effort to get back to it. and if that something is what we call "exercise" then the effort is much much greater.

i've already been there twice last week. my compulsion was to put as much weight as a i can do with ten reps, but as physical therapist i should know better. plus, even with the little weights that used i got already easily fatigued. talk about being deconditioned for some time.

but i made it. and im feeling much better now. the fact that i quit my job and just now resting (ok now you think im a moron for being so proud about it, but really i have no regrets... for now) and getting a little exercise again afford me to sleep better and feel healthier.

for some reason, i have also now disciplined myself not to crave too much for burgers, fries and donuts. except for few occassions when i want to indulge. coffee is still one of my favorite drinks though. come on, each of us is engaged into some form of non-destructive addiction. and coffee has been my father's bondage for a long time. at least that's something that i inherited from my dad.