gijs & lee-yan's lightning trip

Let me be perfectly clear.

2010-09-10T15:33:00.002+12:00

Ok. I consider you guys my friends and I love you. You give me support and you make life a little bit more bearable.

I've never felt more welcome in this country than when I decided to join the New Zealand comics and Drupal communities. You are some of the most wonderful people I've met and you were the guys who first made me think that, hold on, maybe I can make a life for myself in this country. It was like finally finding an oasis of acceptance and friendship after crawling on my belly in the desert for six years. Like that guy who starts off Monty Python episodes.

But lately, I'm starting to think that it might be a mirage.

I don't want to convert anyone but I don't want to feel that I have to be ashamed of my religion either. I'm cool with you because what's important to me is that you're a good person. I'm married to an Atheist. I have close friends who are Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Free Mason. Someone very important to me is gay. My oldest friend in NZ is studying to be a priest and like me, he thoroughly enjoyed the film 'Dogma.'

I think its really stupid to count someone out just because of a difference of opinion. If you have the same values and if you are a good person, which means learning to respect a difference of opinion and not shitting all over someone's race or creed or sexual orientation, then you're okay in my book.

I usually like to keep my mouth shut, but the only time I speak out is when I encounter bigotry. My second year in NZ, I spent two hours trying to convince someone that homosexuality wasn't a choice but genetic destiny - and I'm still proud of the fact that I changed someone's mind. When I lived in Mt. Roskill I would argue extensively with bible-thumpers who blamed the world's ills on gay people. I got into fights with misogynistic co-workers who believed that women should stay in the kitchen. I will always stand up for my Muslim friends but I will always correct them when they get a little anti-semitic.

Its not my job and its certainly hasn't made my life easier. But I do this, because if there's one thing I learned in Catholic school is that your actions matter, and that evil happens when good men don't speak out. Yes, I am fiercely protective of it because I don't want the good to be damned along with the bad. I don't want the faith and institution that educated me and taught me my values and how to be a citizen (when all the adults just shirked or ignored responsibility, the nuns and teachers at St. Mary's Academy were the only source of stability to me and thousands of other children who came from poor or dysfunctional backgrounds - it was literally the only safe place we knew) to be banished along with the Mr. Hyde version of it that seems to have taken a permanent perch on the front page of the New York Times.

So all I'm asking is for a little consideration and please stop shitting over my religion or anyone else's. No one has a premium on stupidity: if someone wants to use the Bible, or Marxism, or the Torah or the Koran or Ayn Rand to lend legitimacy to their craziness then is it the fault of the philosophy or the person who takes it out of context? Heck, someone shot up the Discovery channel offices because they weren't showing enough environmental programmes. People will find a reason no matter what.

If you want to have a real discussion about people's differences, please approach it with the respect and the openness that has been accorded you. Implying that anyone who practices religion is a moron is probably not the best way to start.

If this note has convinced you that I'm insufferable and have no sense of humour then I suppose that's true. There's always the option to un-friend me. It will sadden me, but sometimes people will have to agree to disagree.

I Love Atheists

2010-01-15T21:05:00.005+13:00

I love atheists. I should know, I married one.

And yet I'm a believer, though not the wear it on your sleeve kind, nor the type who thinks that anyone else who doesn't share my beliefs is on the express lane to hell.

I'm the kind who thinks that the ones who should have a toasty little tete a tete with Satan are the ones who say things like "(Disaster-plagued country) deserved what it got because it (swore a pact with the devil to gain independence/harbours homosexuals/some other wildly preposterous reason)," while never knowing what it's like to have the walls come tumbling over your head or watch the flood waters rise and your entire home wash away, or lose a loved one without any warning.

Call me a Cafeteria Catholic and I'll probably say yes - if it means that I sometimes disagree with the Pope, or if I believe that what a person decides to do with their body is their business and not anyone else's. You can also call me that if it means someone who firmly believes in the separation of church and state.

But if by Cafeteria Catholic you mean someone who's only Catholic when it's easy, then I will probably tell you to get lost. Because its not easy, especially when you're always on the defensive, when people continually wonder if you are part of a system that has been responsible for horrible abuse and therefore somehow condone it.

There was a time when I didn't have to worry if I asked people for prayers that it might devolve into an argument, or if I sent someone a greeting card that said, "Merry Christmas!" that I was offending them. Would I be offended if my Hindu friends wished me happy Diwali, or if my Muslim friends wished me a lovely Eid ul-Fitr? Of course not - I'd probably respond with a namaste or salaam.

One of the great ironies I've experienced is that I was never cussed out for being a Christian when I lived in a predominantly Muslim country. I respected their beliefs even though I disagreed with some of their practices, but all in all we were happy to focus on the things that were common to us. Yet I remember a secular friend of mine - a man who never raised his voice - morphing into the Hulk when I mentioned that I was Catholic. I'd never experienced such venom in my life and so even though he eventually changed back into Bruce Banner, I kinda stayed away after that.

Shouty people always freak me out, even the religious ones. I've had a few people knocking on my door asking me if I found Jesus and stuff and while I understand that they are obliged to do this, I get really angry when I ask them if they could leave because I'd just come in from a downpour and I'd really like to change into some dry clothes and they think that I'm not serious.

I also get angry when they look at me and automatically think I'm an easy target because I'm polite and unassuming and I work at home and aren't I exactly the kind of lonely housewife that they're looking for? And when they see me losing my patience they think they can reel me in by saying, "Don't you agree that God hates fags?" That's when I say, "I've read the Bible twice over and studied theology for half my life. If you want to debate scripture with me, then bring it. But this is my house and I won't tolerate that kind of hate speech."

Or something to that effect. I wonder if my secular or atheist friends assume that just because I am a Christian, that means I have some kind of wacko agenda, that I want to ban the teaching of evolution in schools and that I will believe in any kind of mumbo jumbo. "Are you kidding me?" I'd say before launching into a long defense of my Catholic education where the curriculum included (yes) evolution and a whole heap of other things, like rudimentary sex ed in the second grade.

So I shake my head when I hear about people making a disgrace of their faith (any faith!) by using it to justify their intolerance, their ignorance, their greed and calumny, or to push whatever insane agenda they're trying to push. It astounds me when people who so clearly do not have right on their side would often invoke God as the patron, nay, instigator of their cause.

Yet I also shake my head when people who do not believe in God, those who often invoke Reason as their supreme deity and Intellectual Rigor as their faith, could make the simplistic mistake of blaming all the world's ills on religion. Those who assume that there must be no God if you consider the horrors that are committed in His Name - if He could smite someone, wouldn't He smite them already?

"If there is a God, " my husband once said, "I'd like to have a word with Him." Maybe he imagines that he could intellectually shish-kebob the Almighty with the laser point of his brain. In my inadequate way, I try to explain that the ills of the world are mainly due to Man's doing - our innate ability to turn everything we touch into shit - and that is because we have Free Will. Man has an equal capacity for good and evil, and which way we turn is completely up to us.

"I can't accept that when things are good you thank God, but when things are bad you blame people. If He were responsible for the good, wouldn't He be equally responsible for the bad? If He were omniscient and omnipotent, why didn't He realise that people would become evil? Why doesn't He intervene when disasters happen?" This is when I am at a loss - why indeed? Why didn't God send a well-timed thunderbolt in Hitler's or Stalin's way? Why does He allow innocent people to be hurt everyday? Why? Why? Why?

To tell you the truth, I don't know. If I said God's ways were mysterious, my husband would probably call bullshit.

***

I only recently learned about how children once had to endure corporal punishment in schools (religious and otherwise) in this country. I also learned that an in-law who went to Catholic school was sexually harassed by the principal who was also a priest. And I am shocked. I am shocked because tough as the nuns were who ran my school, if there was even a hint of anyone getting hurt, mistreated or sexually harassed - the person responsible would be found and dealt with immediately. Once a classmate slugged me in the face - the teacher grabbed the kid, hauled him to the principal's office and both our parents were immediately summoned.

To be fair, there were times when it felt more like a gulag than a school, like when I got into trouble when I dared submit an editorial questioning what the real motive was for raising money during Mission Month. But mostly the nuns and teachers of St. Mary's have been figures of rectitude and respect. They did right by me and they taught me to do right even when the people I were supposed to depend on kept failing me.

And to think I used to go around saying I was agnostic. Now I wake up at 7am every Sunday so I can go to church, even if I've only slept at around 4 a.m. Maybe I'm just contrarian, maybe its my way of honouring those nuns, maybe I became even more Catholic just to aggravate my secular friends.

If my resurgent religiosity is due to the influence of those nuns or even if I'm just doing this to tweak my husband, then why should I be dismayed if someone loses their faith because they were caned at Catholic/Anglican/Public school? If the people you'd been taught to respect and look up to all your life suddenly turn around and betray you, then why shouldn't you reject them and everything that they represent?

I'm dismayed because I think people who have experienced these things are being hurt twice: first by the people who committed these crimes and second, by their own disillusionment. When they say they have no faith, they allow their anger and hurt and humiliation blind them to the good things as well - and yes, there ARE good things.

To people who claim to be atheist because they can't ever imagine what they might have in common with their religious brethren, I'm sorry, but you can't see the forest for the fundamentalists. I'm dismayed when you assume that people's failings are God's failings and that because you can't make sense of the world, it must be because there is no Higher Being and therefore no Higher Purpose.

I'm dismayed because such thinking leads to cynicism instead of clarity. You'd think that once we'd all figured out that there's no one else here - just us - that we would be more responsible for our actions. That we would do the right thing just because it was the right thing to do instead of - I don't know - because we feared God's wrath or didn't want to be on permanent rotisserie setting in the afterlife.

Perhaps atheists have more faith in human beings than I do, because I think that we would only find other excuses to be stupid and mean to one another. I'm sorry my beloved secularists: wars will still happen in God-less paradise, bombs will still be thrown, people will still be hurt and inexplicably horrible things will still happen - but for other reasons.

And when something good does happens, we won't even feel good about it - we'll just poison it with bile. The LA Times reported the "miraculous" recovery of a mother who apparently died while giving birth to what seemed a stillborn baby on Christmas Eve. The husband prays like crazy - and voila! - the baby starts breathing. And just when they're wheeling the mom away her vital signs return. You'd think that the husband would be flooded with good wishes from commenters. Instead he was called ungrateful for not acknowledging the doctors' hard work - that it was purely Science that made this recovery possible. He was also called a religious idiot. "If there was a God, wouldn't He have made sure that this didn't happen in the first place?"

Well if God was there in that delivery room, or some Angel, then you could well imagine Him telling that troll, "You're welcome. And you know what, next time you're in a clinch let me know, okay?"

It's not that I don't have faith in human beings - if I didn't then why am I still shocked when someone jumps the queue? I'm just not foolish enough to think that as humans, we alone are sufficient. That we've figured it all out. That this body is all there is, that what we see or touch or buy or eat or crap out of our rear ends is the sum of all that's real. If that is the totality of our experience then what the hell kind of a life is that? Furthermore, if faith is irrelevant then why did we invent it?

I believe because despite my own inherent cynicism, even when I was agnostic teetering toward atheist, I was never abandoned. I could list the three specific incidents in my life when I felt so hopelessly lost but then something happened that let me know - without a doubt - that there was a God and boy, did He love me. I could but I won't because I know that someone somewhere out there will miss the point and say, "You moron, it was science that did it. You hear me? Science!" even if science had nothing to do with it.

I'll finish with this excerpt from David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College commencement address:

There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp."

Like I said, I love atheists.

Our Wedding - March 10, 2009 at Onuku Farm, Akaroa

2009-03-27T11:11:00.002+13:00

A Valentine's Day Letter

2009-02-15T19:43:00.002+13:00

hey beautiful :)

makes me think of the rolling stones song that goes, "you can't always get what you want/ you can't always get what you want/ but you get what you need."

funny how one learns to make peace with the stuff one can't have. to be truthful, i had myself a bit of a cry a few nights ago because this wasn't exactly the way i had planned my big day to turn out. for one thing, no one from my family will be attending, in fact i only have one friend who will be showing up. my maid of honour will be gijs' sister instead of one of you girls. it won't be in a church because gijs hasn't been baptised. there won't be a cake, or a reception or any chance of my dad giving me away (i don't think he even knows because it seems he hasn't opened his email and he hasn't called). i haven't been able to talk to my mom either because she had the phone disconnected(!) - though i did get get a valentine's card with "best regards to you and your handsome husband."

i mean, i'm all about making it basic because we're not doing great financially but i wish that at least the bride's side wouldn't be just one person and whatever farm animal chose to wander in from the field that day. it almost makes me think that there will be a similar scene at my funeral, where we would probably have to hire professional mourners just to make it seem that i would be missed. or if the money's still tight we could just fire the dirge singers and play a recording of 'eleanor rigby'.

anyway, i realise that i have only myself to blame for the state of things because (a) i moved to new zealand (b) i suck at making friends here (c) neither i nor gijs earn enough to be able to afford to fly anyone over (d) we did it on such short notice because (e) i decided to go ahead and fall in love with a european which entails all sorts of bureaucratic hassles, like a seven-month wait to just get our marriage license validated for the eu.

it was the last bit that largely determined the when and how of our nuptials. if we didn't marry early enough to give the bureaucratic machine some lead time to start running, it could mean that gijs would turn down every job offer from any country that would not allow me to gain residency. all this during a global financial crisis that's looking bleaker by the minute. the thought that this young man (who's cutting off the circulation in my left arm as i write this) could seriously damage his future because of me, was more than enough persuasion than i needed to put aside my childhood plans of swanning down the aisle in satin and brocade. we would just have to cut costs while creating something memorable.

and yet because its always hard to settle, i find myself standing outside bridal boutiques and staring madly at the designer dresses the way a diabetic stares at frosted chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles on top. i did buy a pretty dress, but an inexpensive one that was one size too big and could used at a hundred other events. then i proceeded to ruin it by stitching ribbons on until it looked like a home economics project gone horribly wrong. in short, i found myself obsessing over the tiniest details when it came to the things that I could control.

in any case i found myself praying, "please lord, i'm going crazy thinking about the things i can't have. could you just flip a switch somewhere so i can just learn to accept things as they are and just enjoy it for what it is - which is already a great gift." i wish i could say that i felt a great peace settle over me after that, but in an hour I was off looking at hair accessories because dammit, they don't have hairdressers in akaroa (or at least ones who answer their phone) and if i'm just going to get a french twist then i want a fascinator or a tiara or something that would make me stand out beside my statuesque maid of honour! but just my luck, all the shops are closed.

it seems that the more i want something, the more it flies out of my reach. and its true - i only found gijs after i'd resigned myself to a long boring spinsterhood where i would eventually expire and be mistaken by dogs for kibble. i look back at all the guys i could have wound up with (all mostly young fathers now :)) and how badly I wanted each of them to be "the one" and how crazy i got when i realised that they weren't. like the dress i butchered, i tried to make them fit me even when it was clear that they didn't. and now i'm thanking the almighty over and over that he didn't give me what i want, because if he did then it would have been an utter disaster.

instead i got someone who was contrary to my idea of what a good boyfriend would be. someone who didn't look good on paper, who didn't share in any of my obsessions and defied all of my expectations. someone whose unabashed lack of religion all but makes my dream of a beautiful catholic ceremony impossible. and yet there's no one else that i would rather spend the rest of my life with (even though a catholic ceremony would have solved the whole lack of guests on the bride's side thing because then we could just hijack people who were attending mass anyway. then i'd line up at the entrance with the padre and thank all the strangers for attending my wedding :) )

but some things apparently can't be compromised. when i said none too convincingly that a plain wedding band would do, gijs put his foot down and said, "no, we're getting the ring you want. i saw your face light up when you found that platinum one with the diamond and that's what we're gonna get. or something like it." so he got me a palladium ring with a diamond custom-made, eventhough at that point his bank account was close to zero. needless to say, i don't think a more beautiful ring was ever made.

i know i won't get the wedding of my dreams, but it will be something more meaningful and memorable. like i said, all the shops were closed today and i was beginning to slide into, "can't i ever get a break?" territory. but as gijs and i were walking we found a nondescript shop that sold old-style ribbons like the hairclips i used to wear as a kid. it turns out that the shop was run by a true-blue artist from korea who makes absolutely gorgeous ribbon flowers by hand. she said she could custom design me a fascinator that would match my dress. and that she would do this for twenty dollars. twenty dollars - that's like five pounds for something really unique and special, and a fraction of what i would have paid at the shops if they had been opened.

seems to me that this whole not getting what you want thing is turning out to be a pretty good deal.

love,
lee-yan

Who throws a shoe, honestly?

2008-12-16T15:22:00.006+13:00

Well apparently this guy does. Apart from testing George Bush's reflexes, the Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi earned wide-spread praise in the Arab world and basically just made my morning if not the rest of my week. Al-Zaidi reportedly shouted, “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!” while he hurled his footwear at the soon-to-be-former U.S. President during a press event.

Of course this is really embarrassing if you think about it. It raises all sorts of questions about the security at press conferences attended by outgoing heads of state, particularly one that was supposed to highlight recent security gains. And of course, throwing your shoe at someone goes against deeply-held Iraqi values of hospitality - hospitality I might add, that is accorded even to sworn enemies.

And yet the act is also unfailingly eloquent on so many levels. First, consider the metaphorical possibilities - from these boots are made for walking to handing someone their walking papers shoes. And then, there's the inherent drama of the act itself - which recalled anecdotes of guests, lovers or spouses who had overstayed their welcome and found themselves and their belongings thrown out on the curb. But mainly, there's the comedic aspect - the surrealism of it all. Reading the account, I felt as though I were watching a Fellini film, with W. as the kid who had exasperated his father's patience to the point that he was going to get his ass summarily handed to him.

Click ahead to 3:30.

The whole shoe-throwing thing got everybody's attention and united Iraqis across ethnic and religious lines. It didn't matter where you came from or what you believed - Iraq had had enough. And then I thought, if militant extremists really wanted to get their message across, why not throw shoes instead of bombs?

But while I alternated between mirth and dismay (because the last episode of the Daily Show for this year had just aired and I would have given anything to see Jon Stewart's take on this) I couldn't help but also feel a little sorry for W. I mean, ever since Obama was elected, he's been going through the motions - he can't even hold his head up anymore. It must have been the worst day of W.'s life, to be confronted like that. Back home, if someone had been disgraced as he had been, we would just lay off and avoid eye contact until they got the message. But to have someone throw their shoe at you while you've nothing to look forward to but a lifetime of ignominy? Well, that's just like kicking the dog when he's down.

Oops.

The Seat Perilous

2008-12-10T20:50:00.006+13:00

One of the things that never cease to surprise me here in New Zealand is how much the 6 degrees to Kevin Bacon rule applies. For the uninitiated, its a game where you try to link the actor Kevin Bacon to anyone else in Hollywood within six degrees - the entertainment value comes from how discovering how easy it is. I know I shouldn't be surprised because (A) I live in Auckland - which is about one-fifth of the population of Manila, and (B) there are absolutely no ghettos here - folks who want to cluster together and form various (insert ethnicity here)-towns simply don't meet with much success.

So unlike back home where high walls, barbed wire and round-the-clock security guards pretty much ensure that even the mildly affluent will never have to interact with the hoi polloi except in a strictly service-based capacity - here in New Zealand you get thrown right into the jumble of humanity. One minute you may find yourself picking up the pace to avoid the resident foul-mouthed-crazy-guy-in-a-Santa-hat (whose aggressive demeanor topped by festive headgear is an essay in holiday irony all by itself) and the next you realise that you had spent three months working with the Kiwi equivalent of David Axelrod. Okay, maybe not David Axelrod but I shall henceforth refer to him as "the Dude".

It all started innocently enough. The first time I came into the Dude's office was so we could suss out some logistics related to getting our project done on time. He offered to let me sit in the gnarly, high-backed chair that occupied one corner of his office in a converted villa on Symonds Street. It was the sort of chair where you imagine a man in a smoking jacket would retire to ponder whether he should hunt stag or pheasant in the morning - all the while taking long, luxurious puffs on his pipe. However it was also in such a state of wear - upholstery cracked everywhere, yellow foam showing through in so many places - that it took on an aura of malevolence; it was the only unabashedly dirty thing in this fastidiously-kept room.

He must have sensed my discomfort because he started laughing and told me how this office used to belong to former Prime Minister Helen Clark when she was still a professor at Auckland University. He described how the one thing that hadn't changed through the years was that chair and how probably dozens of blissfully unaware students had plopped themselves down on it nary the wiser of its particular history. "Maybe if you sit on it," he said with a sly twinkle, "You'll feel unearthly powers start to take hold of you." Or something to that effect.

Considering that I have a special terror for Faustian bargains, I steered clear of that chair - though it did serve once or twice as a convenient place for me to fling my messenger bag - and we got down to business.

To cut the story short, the project was (largely) finished recently and I wrote the Dude a message on his Facebook wall wishing him kudos for his presentation. I couldn't help but see other messages wishing him well on his upcoming trip to Wellington. I just assumed that he was getting an award or honour - it never crossed my mind that he was moving there for work because, after all he was the driver of the project and we still had some work to do. Or maybe I was just in denial. Today, I was forwarded an email saying that the Dude had handed in his resignation and that he been appointed Senior Ministerial Advisor.

My thoughts returned to the chair and the irrational feelings it provoked in me two months ago. In my recollection, each rip and tear had taken on a more sinister aspect - they weren't just rips anymore, they were gashes. The yellow foam that had burst through the cracked upholstery now resembled pus bubbling from a cankered sore. The space between the back and the seat - the innocent repository for breadcrumbs, lost change and all the missing socks that you thought had vanished into thin air - was now a vortex that consumed anything that dared get close to its gravitational field. I suddenly remembered making a nervous joke about being swallowed up by it and never making it out alive.

With these thoughts running through my head, I wrote the Dude another note - this time conveying my congratulations as well as stating the obvious accusation, "YOU SAT IN THE CHAIR, DIDN"T YOU???"

Guess who I'm rooting for?

2008-12-06T20:57:00.003+13:00

Read more here: http://delahoya-vs-pacquiao.blogspot.com/

HULK SMASH!

2008-11-25T20:27:00.006+13:00

Man am I cheesed off - I am so cheesed off that I drove around on my moped like a maniac, yelled, "F*CKWIT!" at my phone (but only after I'd politely said goodbye, because I wouldn't be me if I wasn't passive-aggressive) and promised myself that I would never, ever take a call from this person again. The audacity of people's rudeness, and the creative reasoning behind why they cannot be held accountable for it just stuns me into disbelief sometimes.

Case in point. There was an event I was sent an invitation to, just another one of those work-emailey things that I tend to put in my "wait and see" box but generally wind up trashing because as I've gotten older, my patience for this sort of thing has diminished. I know I should be putting myself out there because I do run a business, but I am hopeless at small talk and I wind up freaking people out anyway because I either overload them with information or try too hard to win them over (Read: Desperate). So rather than subject myself to that kind of embarrassment I just sit back, do my thing and hope that my work will speak for itself. And its been working great for me so far.

Then I get a call - would I come? I say that I'm still nursing a cold and I'm painfully considerate to the point that I would hate the idea of infecting or, more likely, reinfecting someone who's managed to come out of the recent miasma of runny noses. But would I come anyway - because there are some people that they would like to introduce me to. I thought for a moment and tried to tally if the person on the other end had enough credit to make me overcome my misgivings. I thought, well - just enough. And I did have to force myself to schmooze once in a while. I tried to sound non-committal because after all, my eyes still felt like they were on rotisserie setting, but I got all sorts of pleased-sounding noises on the other end to the effect that it will be a hoot, we would finally be able to catch up - the unstated implication being that I wouldn't be left stranded there trying to flog myself to people I barely knew.

So dutifully, I cut the nightly long distance to Gijsje short (after an epic bout of whining that I really, really didn't want to go but I probably need to anyway because of the business) - which is about the only time in my day where I get any real human interaction. I iron and primp to the point of being presentable - but most of all, I put on my "game" face, which involves suppressing my profound ambivalence about marketing with a capital M so as not to give potential contacts the impression that I am bordering on schizophrenia. After doing all this, I make my way to the meeting place and I think, hmmm - there's no one at the door. If I was dragged here as mere seat-filler then I would probably have to lie across a few. Furthermore, I wasn't late - so shouldn't someone be there to keep the door open? So I call the inviter who proceeds to tell me that they won't actually be there, but that I should feel free and introduce myself to the people who will be.

I can't say I was really surprised they did this. They have flaked out on me before and massively so. I was led to believe that there was work forthcoming and could they book me in for the next three months? This was accompanied by cards and promises that the project would be better managed, etc., etc. And like the dog that saw its reflection gnawing a bone, I fell for it - it was a pretty big client you see. So I started turning down jobs - saying I wouldn't be available to at least three unique prospects. And you know how important unique prospects are to a small business like mine. If they're happy with your work and I don't think I've had complaints so far, you can put do your best Michael Keaton as Batman impression, growl "I want you to tell your friends about me," and they will.

Needless to say the job did not materialise - they had assumed the project would go ahead but it didn't for reasons I won't discuss here. I felt a frustration so profound that I actually considered shutting down the business and going back to writing and drawing comic books. Not that that was a realistic alternative, but still it was something I had been considering for sometime - and if I failed doing it then it was an entirely new kind of failure - a failure that would somehow go down more easily than one's livelihood getting the scuttlebutt because of someone flaking out. What I got out of the whole experience was a comic book script which was reasonably good - at least in my estimation - to convince me that I really shouldn't give up writing; AND a new policy of not turning down any prospective clients simply because a job had already been scheduled. So I turned potentially tragic turn of events into a teachable moment.

But one thing that experience should have taught me was that every time they reach out to me, I should run in the opposite direction. But against my better judgment, my gut and my body (which apparently remembered what my brain could not because the closer the time came to the meeting, I started feeling feverish) I decided that I should show up for old time's sake.

Well, at least I got a blog post out of it.

The Interim Hubby

2008-11-20T22:31:00.008+13:00

I'm putting Gijs on notice: this damned separation thing is not boding well for our relationship. I mean sure it's only going to be for another five weeks and I've been apart from him before for six months at a time, but I don't really think we can survive much longer if he and I both subject ourselves to takeaways, too much work and boring television just to keep us both from pining.

I mean, a person can only take so much. Before I met Mr. Ijpma, I was notorious for gawping at good-looking men. If a handsome guy walked past me, I would turn around so quickly that I'd give myself whiplash. But all that ended when I was blinded by the flash of luminous flesh from the infamous resident of Gillies Block.

"Ugh," a friend once confided, "It's that guy again - I can't stand him. Every morning he goes to the toilet in his underwear!"

But while Gijs was offending the Kiwis left and right by subjecting their delicate sensibilities to his unabashed naturalism, I was smitten. I may have told him, "Put some clothes on for the love of Christ!" but I was also sneaking a peek or two. Thus my proclivities have been undone by curiosity, and my curiosity since been conquered by love.

However, as I have said - I have been away from my partner for five weeks now. For four of those weeks I have been doing fine, even reveling in the pleasures of having lots of time to myself. If I wanted to do something I just went ahead and did it. I didn't have to worry about a companion feeling bored or peevish if I wanted to try on a pair of jeans for the fifth time. And of course I got to hog the remote and the internet and the DVR - so it actually felt sweet.

But then this week, I found myself tearing up from the smallest things - like pictures of puppies or very small children. I start seeing so many blissful couples arm in arm everywhere (was it a coincidence that they were all Euro-Asian couples?) that I begin to wonder if God is mocking me. Then of course I got sick, which is totally Gijs' fault because he wasn't here to fix the weather station so I didn't know that the temperature had dropped precipitously on Sunday morning. And he wasn't there to tell me to stop caring about how I looked and just put on an extra coat already, because he knows I always get cold while riding my scooter. So I wasn't entirely sure that it was my sinuses giving me a runny nose or making my eyes watery when I climbed into bed for the past couple of days.

I've decided that this state of affairs can't continue. If Gijs can't be here for me then I must find myself a suitable replacement, a companion to cheer me and keep me from devolving into a scary woman who talks to cats and eats whatever's left in the refrigerator. I have looked far and wide, and I have decided on someone.

And so I present, for your enlightenment and my delectation, my interim hubby, the one-time presidential candidate, practicing Catholic and unabashed comicbook geek Stephen Colbert.

Talk about a triple threat! (Click on the image to view the Colbert Report episode that stopped me pining.) There are so many things we have in common - I mean the guy even has mismatched ears like I do - it can only be kismet.

Voting for Stupid

2008-11-06T23:04:00.008+13:00

I don't know about you, but I am so relieved. I don't really know the difference between electoral votes and popular votes - or that much about statistics really, so when I happened to look at the interactive map on the New York Times yesterday morning, all I could see were a lot of states going pink (and they were pretty big states at that) which meant they were leaning toward McCain. I thought, was this the 11th-hour reprieve the Republicans were talking about? Or maybe I was just too paranoid after watching Recount.

What a thrilling race, because there's never been so much at stake. I did not count it as a done deal - the blue states seemed disproportionately few and comparatively small. Just as everyone had written McCain off during the Republican primaries, I allowed myself to think that it was possible that Obama might do a "Giuliani" (my new word for being favored in the press but ultimately coming up short down the wire).

But I needn't have worried, though it's only because I keep forgetting how smart Obama is - so smart that it's almost scary.

Now I'm not one of those people who distrust intelligence. In fact I believe that it's kind of a waste of time to talk to someone if you're not learning something new. Case in point: when I am confronted with an idiot, my eyes narrow into slits and the force of my contempt is concentrated into high-powered lasers which proceed to shred said idiot like so much shawarma meat.

Needless to say, I am frequently an idiot myself but at least I have the decency to call myself on it. :)

The truth is, I fetishize intelligence and by that token, Obama should be the centrefold in the Playboy of my imagination. But just as some men experience rubber-kneed awe - though not love - when confronted with the existence of Angelina Jolie, I find myself quaking in my boots before Obama's brilliance. It's as though if I were to look at him directly, I'd be turned into stone or a pillar of salt.

And it's not just that the man is scary smart, but he also has this incredible knack of attracting and maintaining the loyalty and devotion of other scary smart people as well. I believe that if their collective brain power could be harnessed as an alternative energy source, then the industrialised world can rid itself of its dependence on oil for good.

But that's not all - they're also amazingly disciplined and even-tempered. Many a supposedly intelligent person have been saddled by social idiocy and emotional immaturity, which is its own special brand of stupid. It all comes down to lack of self-awareness and a blase disregard for people's feelings - in short, that universal failure of smart people: arrogance.

Faced against this behemoth of brainpower, this titan of temperament, one can't help but wonder if John McCain's disorganised, discombobulated campaign ever had a chance. In fact Obama's team knew well enough in advance that the race was over (right after the end of the third debate). They even considered telling McCain this, but what might have been a bone-headed display of hubris was eventually mitigated by human decency and once again, smarts saved the day.

I probably don't need to tell you how badly McCain's campaign was run, but I will anyway. I've previously speculated that such a disaster could only be tantamount to sabotage. But for less conspiracy-laden but more damning details (if schadenfreude is as much your thing as it is mine) go here and here.

Pundits proclaim that the election of Barack Obama is an overpowering affirmation of the desire for CHANGE. It is, but it's not just that. If anything it's a referendum on the willful stupidity of the last 8 years. After Bush out-Quayled Quayle, and his folksy pride in his own ignorance stopped being amusing and just became a pedestrian variety of evil. After McCain blithely announced that the fundamentals of the economy were strong while financial institutions were toppling over like so many dominoes. After the Maverick suspended his campaign. After he chose a running mate who proceeded to do more damage to his credibility than his own opponent. Voters could clearly see that a vote for McCain wasn't a vote for Change - it was a vote for Stupid.

I believe that despite people's misgivings about Obama - which I shared at some point - his calm and cool deliberation, his philosophy of "No Drama" and his undeniable savvy did more than disprove them. These qualities proved the anti-thesis to what voters perceived McCain's bungling, and by extension Bush's epic fail of a presidency.

Looking at Obama now that the race has been won, he seems almost wistful. His somber mood during the victory celebrations took a cue from the funereal atmosphere at Fox News, which was very much at odds with the jubilant supporters on the split screen. I don't know if he was thinking of his mom, his grandmother or other loved ones who didn't live to see this moment. It could be that or it could be something else.

I read somewhere that just as victory became a very real possibility, his famed confidence began to slip and he confided in someone, "What if I disappoint them?" Looking at the sea of people who swarmed to support him, how can he not?

Still, this rare moment when Obama wondered - as any over-achieving child of immigrants or lower middle-class strivers has done - if he was ever going to measure up to the tremendous expectations of him was a moment when he stopped being scary smart and just utterly human.

Hey, it's my Dad!

2008-10-25T23:16:00.002+13:00

I finally Googled my Dad today - not an easy task sifting through the results since there are hundreds of Reynaldo Marquezes around the world, but look what I found!

And here's the info I found with it:

Reynaldo Guevara Marquez from the Philippines has made a major contribution to farming in one of Australia's most unfavourable areas, the Pilliga Scrub near Narrabri. The soil in this area is sandy, shallow, acid and lacking in nitrogen and growth is sparse and poor quality. In less than two years Rey Marquez has succeeded in developing a combination of superphosphate and lime and seed inoculated with a strain of bacteria that produced fine, thick, lush fodder - the Pilliga farmers showed their appreciation of Reynaldo Marquez's work by presenting him with a engraved silver tray and a wallet of banknotes before he left for the Philippines. (left to right) Douglas Richards; Mr S O'Reilly, Senior Agronomist to the Department of Agriculture, New South Wales and Reynaldo Marquez [Photographic image]. Photographer / John Tanner. 1 photographic negative: b&w, acetate
Date : 1955

That's it - no more elections for me. Let's just have a dance off!

2008-10-25T22:30:00.001+13:00

Oh. My. God.

2008-10-18T01:08:00.002+13:00

Enough said.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Economic Crisis

2008-10-14T20:05:00.005+13:00

I was surprised and pleased to learn that Paul Krugman of the New York Times was awarded the Nobel Prize today - not for his anti-Bush editorials mind you, but for his work in Economics. After reading that he was mostly praised for making the complexities of economics accessible to dum-dums like me, I trawled the internet once more and found a classic Krugman article on Slate.com: Babysitting the Economy

After reading this, I though - egad, so it's savers like me who stagnate the economy and lead countries into recession! I also learned that inflation can apparently be a good thing, because it forces tight-fisted cheapskates like me to part with my hard earned cash. Well, I've seen the NZD fall to 59 US cents and I'm still sitting on my nest egg even as it steadily loses value (I hear Gijs' reassuring voice telling me that the interest will always outstrip inflation) so really, this is my way of saying that they can (1) go to hell and (2) they'll have to pry my worthless savings from my cold, dead fingers first.

But as you may have guessed by now, I am a selfish person who is perfectly happy to squirrel my money away (like the seasonal baby-sitting coupon hoarding couples in Krugman's story) until Judgment Day (Feylin may be onto something)...

...while hoping that everyone else goes on a spending spree. Well not just any spending spree, but a marketing-oriented, website-focused debauch-a-thon so I can reap the benefits. And yet while I turn my expectant gaze toward my clients just as an Isrealite looks heavenward for manna, I feel a tap on my shoulder....holy crap, it's the Retail Industry.

I'm dreading this. We broke up rather unceremoniously, and here he was looking for an explanation.

"Uhh-hurm," he clears his throat before speaking, "We haven't seen you at the mall lately. What's wrong Lee-Yan, don't you like buying stuff anymore?"

"Of course I do," I say gently, reassuringly, "I just go to second-hand stores now. And Trademe."

Just then, Retail's lips start quivering and his eyes start glistening. "But small business owners need you - shopkeepers need you. I NEED YOU!"

I reach out with the hope of staunching the tears that fall freely now, but he swats my hand angrily away. "You're worse than those kids who run up debt shopping on credit for stuff they can't afford! Oh sure, you're good for it so I don't have to send the debt collectors after you, but you're such a bloody cheapskate!"

I'm too aghast to say anything at this point.

"You never buy big ticket items like huge TV's, you always pay in full so you never pay interest - and the most expensive thing you own right now is this laptop that's disintegrating even as we speak..."

People are starting to stare and I do my best to pretend like I don't know this hysterical person. But just when I think I can quietly slip away as he's doubled over sobbing - he grabs hold of my feet and doesn't...let...go.

"Oh please, spend your savings! Not all of it - just a little. I'm sorry I was so demanding earlier...I just want a little bit of your savings, if you could just go to the mall once every so often."

And because I'm a sucker and I just want this degradation to end, I say, "Yes, sweetie. Whatever you say."

Keep Calm and Carry On

2008-10-11T00:49:00.002+13:00

Boy, these are interesting times. This post is actually meant for my family - whom I can't call because my mom decided that the phone bill was no longer affordable. It sounds desperate, but my mom had been threatening to cut off the phone for years. Personally, I believe it's really more about a vague unease with technology (I still have memories of the TV being smashed to bits at some point for adding to fuel my brother's insolence :) ) and a periodic desire to cut oneself off from the world. But hey, we all have those days.

Anyway, it seems strange to be writing to my family through this blog - which I imagine they've never read. But I can't call, and they haven't answered my last letter. So if by some mysterious means the data that I send whizzing though the air should suddenly find its recipient telepathically, this is what I have to say:

That's right. We've been through all this before - Martial Law; the February Revolution; the 1996 devaluation of the peso from 24/1 USD to 52/1 USD overnight; the Internet bubble. We got through that, and we'll get through this one as well.

Crying Sabotage

2008-10-03T12:27:00.012+13:00

Sarah Palin. Everyone's been talking about her and frankly I'm sick of it - I was just going to leave it to the debates, cross my fingers that Joe Biden (whom I like) doesn't gaffe too much or say something incredibly patronising and then assume that the Presidential race is in Obama's bag. But as Michael Corleone said, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"

I happened to see a video of Palin's debate performance during the Alaskan gubernatorial contest and I understood why McCain picked her. She was charming, competent and could clearly hold her own. And when she didn't know the facts, she didn't seem fazed even when her opponents attacked her responses as being political jibberish, which they weren't (at least not the ones I saw). She managed to wiggle out of tight spots either by supplying a generic answer or by simply owning up to her lack of knowledge, which was disarming.

See the video here.

The woman I was watching on the screen was evidently capable of complex thought and coherent speech - which made me wonder all the more WHO was this person who flubbed all her lines to Katie Couric? Just who was this person who looked as though she was a deer caught in headlights while she was sitting primly next to Henry Kissinger?

And what about McCain accompanying her like a father on her next appearance, and then criticising Katie Couric for gotcha journalism? I couldn't help but recall the time I landed in the principal's office for one reason or another and my dad had to drop by to sort things out.

I'm telling you, that's not the same Sarah Palin. Come on, the people of Alaska are not fools - and a fool cannot become mayor then governor in such a short time. As I write this, the debates have yet to air so I'm going to posit two theories.

The first is: this is either a very risky but cunning bit of political theater to make her underperform and seem chronically unprepared, thus inviting the sympathy brigade. But then like some 80's movie, she'll turn around at the last minute and give a stunning debate performance, dazzling everyone with reserves of wit, verve and intelligence that people never knew(?) she had. Jumping Joe will be left stammering and the undecideds - won over by Palin's Rocky-like resurrection - will flock to the struggling Republican ticket in droves.

The second is: there is a saboteur in the McCain camp.

I mean, consider this. McCain ostensibly gave up on the Straight Talk Express and his maverick image the minute he asked his campaign to be taken over by former Bush campaign strategists and Rove acolytes.

From then on, McCain's campaign was characterized by a series of startling reversals. From co-opting Obama's message of change to clumsily appending that concept into an anti-establishment reform/crusade movement led by a Republican presidential candidate against a Washington that is the product of Republican misrule. From disavowing his well-documented respect for a woman's right to choose in order to pander to the religious right, to throwing Joe Liebermann under the bus in order to appease his party and installing a (seemingly) unprepared and unsophisticated politician from the boondocks as his running mate.

(Disclosure: that last move had me pressuring the only American I knew to get registered so he could vote for Obama. There was no denying Palin's charm and genuine star power. I could see even then that she was the anti-Hillary but for different reasons, and though I identify with Hillary and decided that Palin's path to power was oiled by the grease of good looks - dammit, I couldn't help but like her moxie.)

But it was the series of extremely bone-headed moves that McCain did last week - from suspending his campaign and portraying the financial crisis as just another job for The Maverick (which incidentally, is McCain's not so secret superhero alter-ego) to ditching Letterman and lying about it. From arriving to great fanfare at the bailout discussion as the Republican saviour to just...sitting...there...and...saying...NOTHING - as though he had decided to take a page out of Palin's new playbook on how to comport oneself when stumped - and afterward failing to rally his Republican cohorts to put aside self-interest for once and do something that would help the very citizens whose votes they need to stay in office.

Now, I am not a clever person and I won't pretend to be well-versed in politics, but even I can see that this campaign is being run into the ground. There is no consistency, there is no clear guiding philosophy - and all decisions seem have been made from the seat of someone's pants. Or their guts. Or whatever organ besides the brain or heart which has been conspicuously absent these past few weeks. People say that, of course this is an entirely different ballgame. The John McCain whom people liked and respected (hey, I liked him) because of his convictions and his centrist views and refusal to toe the party line just for the party's sake - well that guy can't survive in the high-stakes game of Presidential politics.

But this was the same thing they were saying when they dismissed McCain during the Republican primaries, and they had been proven spectacularly wrong. And now that things are going down the wire it seems that not only is McCain eagerly listening, but he doesn't seem to act without the imprimatur of the very same people who heavily bet on him to fail in the first place.

McCain has hopelessly compromised himself - just listen to him and Palin say "Maverick," over and over like a mantra until it's completely lost it's meaning. He's had to give up his reputation for forthrightness and openness as well as his legacy as a no-nonsense, shit-kicking rabble-rouser - things that were crucial in winning him support among decent, ordinary human beings who were just so tired of the crap and the spin - just so he could convince the malcontents in his party that he could dissemble and demonise like the worst of them, thereby improving his executive credentials in their estimation.

Hence my theory of a saboteur in the John McCain campaign. The usual suspects? Well, I can almost picture Bush tenting his fingers ala Monty Burns - a Bush who couldn't even bring himself to personally appear at the Republican National Convention, quietly using whatever influence he has left in the GOP to pressure McCain into hiring his former campaign staffers so that they can run the McCain campaign to the ground. But then that seems like someone with Tom Ripley's cunning would do, so probably not.

Equally plausible is any politician whom McCain may have offended or "made famous" in his time, so to speak. There might have been one too many people in his own party that McCain alienated to the point that they wouldn't even care if they fell from power - so long as they can watch John McCain and his Straight Talk Express come to within a hair's breadth of the presidency, only to derail and burst into flames. I imagine they must savor the image of their bete surveying the wreckage around him as he enters his seventy-third year. But then again, they would be totally screwed - and I don't think anyone would allow themselves to be placed in that position especially with the prevailing public sentiment.

So I guess all I'm left with is John McCain.

And to think when this whole race started I was afraid for Obama, fearing what the political process would do to his integrity, how his message would be corrupted and his campaign would devolve into the same tried and true mud-slinging political tactics, leaving his followers to sink into cynicism and despair. It turns out I was worried for the wrong candidate.

I Am Hillary Clinton Postscript

2008-09-05T22:13:00.006+12:00

There is a postscript to the story of my travails with the landlord. And let me be the first to say that after the dust has settled and I can now look back on the last few weeks with some clarity...I was wrong.

I think our landlady kinda kicked our landlord's butt into taking care of things so even though it was Gijs who put in the locks, our landlord came around and made sure that the alarm was installed properly. This made me feel guilty, because I had already insisted on moving (no way was I going to stay by myself in that place for two months all by my lonesome!) - so basically they were spending all that money to make someone who was moving out the following week feel safe.

I was really surprised that they didn't make a big fuss out of our moving out. They didn't even insist on the 21 days notice and allowed us to leave within two weeks. And they genuinely seemed sorry to see us go. For the first time since the herb-pulling incident things were going okay. We understood that we were putting them in a bind because they have another baby on the way, so we helped with showing the house to prospective tenants (taking care not to mention the incident of course) and damn if I didn't make sure that the house was spic and span! However, whatever misgivings I may have had about leaving vanished when the thieves came back and showed us that they were smart enough to disable the alarm. While the decision to leave had been prompted by my freak-out with the landlord, it turned out to be the right instinct. And thank God for that.

I just feel bad that I could only be friendly with the landlady again now that we were leaving. Maybe she thought I wasn't such a jerk after all since I took such good care of the house. Maybe they saw this tiny Asian girl hauling and getting things done within a week and decided that maybe I wasn't trying to be cute (since there's nothing cute about moving house) just ruthlessly efficient.

And maybe deserving of some respect after all.

I Am Hillary Clinton

2008-08-09T20:53:00.005+12:00

Right now I realise that the theft of the MacBook, Gijs' Thinkpad and digital camera and my leather jacket were not the worst things about the break-in last night. I know it sounds really Catholic to say this but if I had a choice of bad things to happen to Gijs and me, a burglary would be relatively pain-free compared to, say one of us getting into an accident or contracting a life-threatening illness. Or even the house burning down with all of our stuff inside it. In the poker game of misfortune I must say we have been dealt a light hand. We've had time to rant about it and by this morning we could even begrudgingly acknowledge that the thief was a pro - leaving no footmarks or fingerprints and even making sure that nothing was smashed or broken. This is a good sign because it means that we can start getting over the whole thing and move on.

But here's the catch.

The funny thing about misfortune is that it tends to peel back the layers and reveal hard truths about yourself, your relationship to other people and how they perceive you. And I realised that I am Hillary Clinton.

After the police had left, the landlord came by. He started counting the windows that needed locks and said that he would install deadbolts and that an alarm system up in a week. It was very reassuring to see our landlord being decisive for once - especially since this was a guy who always leaves things half done (side note: on their roof which is right in front of our deck, there's a strip of aluminum siding that's held down by cinder blocks. Gijs and I put them there so it wouldn't fly off in a storm and, I don't know, decapitate us or something). Anyway, I thought that would be the end of his dithering because our security was at issue. After all, we were good tenants and it was in his best interest to keep us safe. I for one desperately needed that kind of assurance because I'm usually here by myself and I really didn't like the idea of encountering the burglars if they decided to come back, which the police assured us they will.

A few hours later, after Gijs had left to get some groceries and I was busy cleaning the house/reclaiming my territory, I heard a knock on the door. I was exhausted at this point having only slept for two hours and starting to feel something like shell-shock. I was also steeling myself to slam the door if it turned out to be someone suspicious. It was the landlord. Far from the reassuring and solicitous presence he had adopted earlier while Gijs was around, he basically looked at me and started chuckling. CHUCKLING. Like I had a banana peel on my head or something. Then he handed me a box which puzzled me even more than his reaction and I asked, "What am I supposed to do with this?" To which he replied, "There's $165 worth of locks there. Gijs can get started putting them in. I'll put the dead-bolts in tomorrow."

I closed the door behind me in an even deeper funk than when I answered it. Did someone just let me know that my obvious distress was funny, or worse - cute? And did that same someone expect me to congratulate him because he spent $165 on locks when Gijs and I collectively lost about, I don't know, $6000 worth of stuff? And wasn't he supposed to have done this before anyway? There was something in his manner that clearly communicated to me that if we wanted to be safe we're going to have to do this by ourselves.

For what must have been the upteenth time, it dawned on me that Gijs and I were alone - really alone. But wasn't it just earlier that one of our neighbors came up to express sympathy? And didn't the landlord's wife communicate genuine concern for our safety? Funny that, I thought. This all happened when only Gijs was around. I was moving in and out of the house all day and no one came up to me, even though in some ways I felt I had lost the most.

I recalled when things started getting weird. And as it usually is with these things, it always starts from something small. Gijs had decided to take out the thyme from the box planter, and the landlord and his wife must have assumed that it was my idea because they were distinctly unpleasant to me after that. If they saw me washing the car, they'd ask if I could do their vehicle too, followed by much laughter - as though I regularly performed this chore dressed in a rabbit suit. If a package or a piece of mail was missing, they'd ask if I had anything to do with it.

Which brings us to my Hillary Clinton analogy.

Consider this: Hillary is so easy to dislike, making fun of her is practically an Olympic sport. Even though she's an equal to her husband everyone just assumes that she's just hanging onto his coattails. If Bill does something stupid, then it must be because she drove him to it. Furthermore Hillary is aware of all these setbacks and tries to play it off with an aw-shucks down-homeyness but instead comes off like a phony. And when she's uncomfortable she spontaneously acquires a southern accent. Hillary Clinton tries to do the best job she can but never gets a break because she takes everything so damn seriously!

I may disagree with the traditional politics that Hillary represents but I can't help but feel kinship with her, because even in this day and age people can still indulge in that kind of knee-jerk misogyny. It shouldn't be a mystery why Hillary Clinton's supporters are so infuriated that they have vowed to vote for John McCain. Their champion and archetype has been ill served for so long that they would like to see her get her dues - just for once. Though they are right to express anger at the impotency and irrelevance that they are constantly made feel, I don't think it serves anybody, least of all themselves when they say that they will go over to the Republicans. It's very hard to get angry at an -ism you see, but very easy to get angry at a person.

P.S. Gijs HEARTS Obama.

3 Great Fantasy Movie Face-Offs

2008-07-29T16:14:00.009+12:00

Recently, some of my favorite fantasy movies from the 1980's crawled up from my subconscious and reasserted themselves. Maybe I'm just experiencing comicbook withdrawal syndrome - heck, I'm not even sure I want to see The Dark Knight so it must be pretty serious. Anyway Gijs has been raiding the torrent sites and managed to download The Last Unicorn for me (although what I really, really want is a copy of The Flight of Dragons)

That got me thinking about how cathartic the face-offs in these movies were - no ambiguity (except maybe in Labyrinth where the privilege of changing your baby brother's diapers doesn't quite seem so preferable to being the Goblin Queen) just good old fashioned Good versus Evil, and brilliant dialog for role-playing. So here's a list, in no particular order:

And since we're talking about climactic end scenes...
WARNING: SPOILER ALERTS GALORE

Sarah versus Jareth

After making her way to the center of the Labyrinth to save her baby brother, Sarah (pre-'Beautiful Mind' Jennifer Connelly) resists the temptation of living in a muppet-populated MC Escher world fashioned by the sexually-ambiguous Goblin King (circa 1986 "laminated list" David Bowie).

The Last Unicorn versus the Red Bull

The Last Unicorn (Mia Farrow) manages to find the courage to defeat the Red Bull into the sea after she sees her human lover Prince Lir (a pre-'Dude', post-'TRON' Jeff Bridges) killed. Don't miss: King Haggard (pre-'LOTR' Christopher Lee) shouting, "The last! I knew you were the last!" as he plunges to his death.

Peter Dickinson versus Ommadon

Scientist-fantasist-author Peter Dickinson (John Ritter) faces down the nefarious Red Wizard Ommadon (James Earl Jones clearly enjoying one of his favorite V.O. roles) using logic and a lot of scientific facts to make each of his heads explode. Which sounds pretty much like any conversation between Gijs and me. Interesting coincidence: Gijs looks a LOT like Peter Dickinson.

You knew this was coming!

2008-05-07T12:59:00.005+12:00

I'm one of the most socially inept people I know. I can't make small talk, I don't say clever things and whenever anyone zings me with a putdown - I simmer and stew and it's only about a day later when the synapses fire and I think of the appropriate response. It's rather like telling a stupid person a joke on Thursday and then hearing a laugh on Friday.

It doesn't help that I like strange things. I'm basically a 32 year old woman with the preferences of an 18 year old boy. I dragged Gijs to see Iron Man with me the other day and behaved like an utter comic book geek. So much so that the other arrested adolescents were craning their necks to see this moron who wouldn't stop saying, "Where's Nick Fury? Is THAT Nick Fury? Come ON!"

The things that are otherwise cool about me, such as the fact that I ride a scooter and that I make websites for a living, bring their own inherent uncoolness. So many hipsters ride scooters now that it seems pretentious. Now that it's winter and raining most of the time it's just ridiculous. And sure I'm at the forefront of the intertubes or the internets what with my timely profession, but it also means seeing nothing except for a computer screen for most of the day.

But I'm probably sabotaging myself. I know it's important to have human contact to save me from my hermit tendencies and yet I moved to country that's roughly the same size as my own but with about 1/20th of the population. The self-preserving reticence I've learned to adopt while living in a jolly, high-strung, rambunctious population isn't doing me much good in a nation where most people behave and speak like Ennis Del Mar.

It doesn't help that I don't understand their sense of humour either. Last Sunday as I was washing the car and scooter, our landlord generously offered to let me wash his car as well. I shrugged but to tell the truth, I was a bit miffed. I know that Kiwis like to take people down a notch, but it seems unnecessary, not to mention unkind when the object being whittled down never tried to stick out in the first place. (Since I'm not above being childish, I brought up the mental list of nice things that I like to do for our landlord and crossed out numbers 3 and 4.)

I also know that what translates to being nice in my culture reads doormat in the enlightened, liberated west. While waiting for my dinner, I once had to listen to someone explain that Asian women were subservient (to another Asian woman in an Asian restaurant while being served by an Asian waitress and cooked for by an Asian cook) just because I asked Gijs if he wanted me to get him a newspaper since I was getting myself a magazine anyway.

But if there's one thing I've learned is to be comfortable in my own hazy misanthropy. It's weirdly liberating to know that no one likes you or at least no one knows you well enough to like you, because suddenly everything you do is no longer motivated by popular opinion. Back home I suppose most of the things I did, I did because they were expected of me and because I was afraid of censure. Now, since censure seems to be the default reaction no matter what I do, I just do as I please.

However, there are still some people whose opinion and feedback I care about. Fortunately or unfortunately, they aren't here. I can't tell my family that there's nothing that I love better than riding my moped and zipping through traffic, because then they would tell me that I'm going to break my neck and I would never hear the end of it. I can't tell my friends back home that my business is doing really well, that I finally decided I had enough to blow money on new office furniture and a Mac Pro because I didn't want to rub my good fortune in their face.

So that leaves me with not a lot to talk about when I do get the infrequent chance. Which gives people the impression that I don't like talking to them and they in turn will send me this weird vibe which I interpret as them not wanting to talk to me. And I, not wanting to be the least bit rude by overstaying my welcome, will slowly and gradually disappear from their lives, which is of course the rudest thing of all.

I find that in combination with my social awkwardness, a rampant id, a vulnerable ego and the cavalier way that I take my remaining friendships for granted, there really is no better recipe for the social equivalent of the Gobi Desert. I mean, if you look at my houseplants and consider that I water them more often than I get in touch with loved ones, and if you take into account that the plants are low maintenance (I'm not sure if I can say the same of my family) but still they are clearly wilting.

However I am still hopeful enough to believe that there will be some sort of reprieve for this pariah (see, there's even a comic book character with that name!) just as I am misguided enough to entertain the idea of growing an herb box for Gijs' table in the middle of winter.

In fact, I just bought some new planters.

Persepolis

2008-01-25T11:05:00.000+13:00

While I was at AUT, I sat next to a quiet gentleman in my Multimedia class. When the time came for us to submit our final project, I saw on his website that he had a photo of himself on a camera rig. Some wank commented on this, "He thinks he looks so cool, looking like a director and all!"

I caught up with my seat mate a few months later when they launched a website featuring the student work of that year. I had submitted a video called "Gijs and Lee-Yan's Lightning Trip" which featured me and Gijs mugging for the camera while we toured the North Island. I managed to overcome my embarrassment enough to discuss how long it took me to do the editing and we fell to talking about film work.

I found out that day that the quiet gentleman that I sat next to for the past year was from Iran and that before he had come to New Zealand, he was a cinematographer. For the next few hours I was riveted as he told me the story of how his work had placed him and his family peril; how he had to escape his country as a refugee to save his own life. It all began when he was shooting a video on an oil tanker. During an unscheduled stop he had accidentally captured footage of a shipment of arms being loaded into the hold. Soon after, the authorities paid him and his family visit. They ransacked his office and confiscated all his footage and equipment - effectively ending his livelihood. Then they blindfolded him and led him God knows where to be interrogated and beaten - in the end he was kept locked up for two years. Finally, his family was able to secure his release but at a hefty price. Eventually they too became targets of harassment. The next time the police dropped by, they not only arrested him but they took his family as well. The conditions of their captivity caused his father to develop heart problems. He didn't even get a chance to see his father before he passed away.

Nine years passed and eventually they were released. On the outside, they realised that it would only a matter of time before they were arrested and thrown into prison again so they decided to leave Iran. The gentleman left first because he was the one who was clearly in danger. False passports had been arranged and he was given several options: the U.S., Canada or Holland. He was informed that it had become significantly more difficult for refugees to enter the Netherlands, while getting to North America would take much longer and involve more risk. Eventually, they settled on New Zealand, which was still open to receiving exiles who had nowhere else to go. He hid in the trunk of a car for several hours while someone drove across the desert so he could begin his odyssey.

My classmate's story kept coming back to me as I was watching the previews for the animated film Persepolis. It's the auto biography of Marjane Satrapi, a comic book artist who grows up during the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Islamic Republic. I've since read the graphic novels on which the film was based and I had a unsettling feeling of deja vu when I came to the sections about Marjane's Uncle Anoush (pictured above).

I think that these are stories that the world should pay attention to, not only because they recount the horrific things that happen to perfectly decent people but because of their determination to live fully, to laugh, love and smile despite everything that has happened to them.

Least of all wankers who think they're showing off :)

Agapantus voor Lien

2008-01-22T23:04:00.000+13:00

Letting the picture tell the story for a change: Gijs in the Auckland Botanical Gardens African section.

A Mix Tape for the Don

2008-01-22T16:23:00.000+13:00

For some time now, I've been thinking of compiling a mix tape (or CD) for Gijs' Dad in the hope that he will consider me worthy of being entrusted with his beloved Rolling Stones CD. If this seems odd (mix tapes being the weapon of choice for the guys of High Fidelity) well, let me explain that culturally, I've come to regard Frans the way a passenger on the Titanic clings to life-saving flotsam. Consider that my own father was directly responsible for me knowing the entire ABBA oeuvre, and whatever hope I have of finding a musical surrogate is doomed by the fact that what's on the radio now is...just...crap!

So here is a list of songs that I could compile for the Don (kisses the ring) with links to where the songs can be listened to. Please note that I found most of these songs on YouTube and therefore have other folks' montages/videos accompanying the music - just listen and enjoy. Feel free to contribute as this is a very short list since my memory is like a sieve - I'll post more as soon as I can remember the other songs. (Or maybe I should just trade for an R.E.M. album?)

Grey in L.A. - Loudon Wainwright III

Daughter - Loudon Wainwright III

Beside You - Dave Dobbyn

Hard to Believe - The Eraserheads

Everybody Hurts - R.E.M.

Imitation of Life - R.E.M.

Daysleeper - R.E.M.

Climbing in the Steps of Hillary

2008-01-16T21:01:00.000+13:00

One of the more special places that Gijs and I have visited here in Auckland is Anawhata. It's smaller than your usual west coach beach but no less spectacular. Its also more private - not a lot of people visit it because it requires some effort. In fact in the five years that we've been living in New Zealand, Gijs says that we've only visited what is officially called Whites Beach together only twice.

To get there you have to tramp for about 5 minutes through a rough-strewn gravel path until you come to a bend surrounded by yellow kowhai. This is a vantage point that rewards you with a view of the rugged cliffs that punctuate the coastline. From there you turn left and downward toward the bush crowded with manuka trees and New Zealand fern. You have to use some very careful footwork as there are loose stones, sand and dirt where one would normally expect some stairs. After about 15 minutes of negotiating this steep, slippery descent, the bushy canopy ends and you tread your way through a narrow trail above a homey-looking bach.

We've often stopped at this trail, wondering how someone could live down here - how even a 4WD would find it difficult to manage the hazardous incline. We've even speculated that the house supplies came by boat - not really knowing that there was a private driveway with a less precipitous grade close to the gravel track.

After we've made our way to the beach - a lovely, lonely spot to watch the waves roll in while the sun goes down, we can pretend that we are the only two people in the world. I seem to recall, in one of the few moments that I manage to tear my eyes away from all this, that there is a bench or a plank of some sort behind us carved with the names of many children. Apparently, we're not the only ones here to make believe we were all alone :)

Going back to the car is a daunting prospect. We may stop at the trail again to look at the solitary bach and admire the bizarre red sky that emerges like a pop print against the blazing kowhai, but by the time we have made our way back to the vantage point, it has been 30 minutes of continuous uphill climbing; it's a hard job retaining the transcendent beauty of Whites Beach when you're hyperventilating like nobody's business.

As you know at the beginning of this week, Sir Edmund Hillary had passed away. To us he was one of those notable kiwis whose lives would never intersect our own except for us watching them on the news or reading about them in the history books. Until Gijs SMSed me soon after to tell me whose bach that was.

Lonely site legend's special place

Grow up already (or why it's a love-hate relationship and not love-love)

2008-01-05T21:23:00.000+13:00

(From the desk of Lee-Yan)

I tend to think of my relationship with New Zealand as a case of amour-fou. I say this because when you're with someone who's not right for you, eventually you're going to get burned.

Imagine if you will, a hapless young man who's just left home for the first time in search of his fortune. On his travels he encounters this beautiful young woman who smiles at him warmly and welcomes him into her home. He is charmed by her openness and friendliness, but it is her lack of pretension that does him in: the young woman is so guileless that she walks around with no shoes on, and though she is beautiful, she seems blissfully unaware of it. This, he decides, is the girl for me.

The young man is supremely happy - he just can't believe his good luck. He has never felt more free and because this beautiful young woman is with him, he feels that anything is possible. But as in all relationships the veil drops and as each day passes, he begins to see the bad along with the good. He realises that she is guileless because she is simple, and that she's simple because she's young. And being young she does childish things.

Like making fun of his clothes or the way that he talks, saying that she couldn't understand what he is saying. For her sake, because he loved her and wanted to be with her, he tried dressing the way all the other young men were dressing, and he tried speaking in the same way that her people spoke. He thought that by doing these things, he could allay whatever misgivings she may have about him. For a while things were alright until she began to make fun of him, pointing out his quirks to her friends even though he could hear.

He began to see her own quirks or faults for what they were. She was very easily led by fashion and by her friends who were also young and foolish. Lacking for nothing, they had no idea of hardship nor of the fortitude needed to overcome life's difficulties. And because they never knew sacrifice, they did not know what it meant to be compassionate. And because of this, they had a surprising capacity for cruelty. The innocence that he had prized had a startling corollary: a amazing lack of self-awareness. They did not know of the world so how could they know of their place in it?

At first he could not believe it and he thought that perhaps if he could talk with the young woman, if he could open her up to his experiences, then she could see the world from his eyes. But she was not ready to listen and he realised that she would not be for a long time. The young man saw that no matter what he did, they would not be able to go back to the way it was.

He bade her goodbye, deciding that he would continue on his travels. The young man was very sad because he had never seen such beauty or such promise, but he could not stay where he could not be himself. He told himself that she was a good person, but one with flaws that only age and experience would temper. Perhaps if they had met when she was a bit older then she might have been the love of his life.

It's 2008 - Time to stop being a Dork!

2008-01-02T15:50:00.000+13:00

(From the desk of Lee-Yan)

First of all a very Happy New Year to everybody!

I know , I know. Shameful how I've let this blog sleep for one and a half year. Lately, I've been thinking about family and friends and the friends who are close enough to be family and I realised that I've done them a disservice by not updating this blog/not writing/not calling.

I don't know why, but I've always been a little adverse to keeping in touch. For instance, I don't remember people's birthdays (except when threatened with desertion); I don't send greeting cards or letters and the people on my email contacts list are either clients or involved with me in some professional capacity.

And forget about calling.Way, way back in 2000 (I think) I was the last person to get a cellphone and I could only be persuaded when I got one free from Talk 'n Text when I designed a website for them featuring Rico Yan (rest in peace!).

In my defense, I wanted to see if it wouldn't go the way of pagers. If it weren't for patient friends who rolled their eyes or loudly proclaimed that I might be a troglodyte then I would have remained phoneless. However, I am not alone in this - Gijs, the love of my life, has only been persuaded to regularly use a cellphone just this Christmas - and only because its a Nokia E61.

And then of course, there's MySpace and FaceBook. But the proto-networking site for us early-adopting Asians has always been Friendster. Please note that I am on Friendster only because I got my arm twisted; of course I have no posts and my pictures date from almost 5 years ago. I hereby attest that while I have my own website for my business, I will never, ever have a MySpace or FaceBook account - or basically anything that makes sport of how many (quote)friends(unquote) you can wrangle. Granted, I'm on LinkedIn, but once again, that's for the business.

It might seem strange that as someone who appreciates and makes a living making websites, I'm actually quite ambivalent about technology. But then again, I'm ambivalent about everything. I still miss using an Olivetti typewriter (stories/compositions typewritten - roughly a dozen; stories/compositions punched out on a keyboard - zero!) and I am pained to see that my cursive which I have toiled to perfect and was reasonably proud of in high school - has gone the way of the dodo.

Not only am I ambivalent - I must be positively contrarian. I believe that there is no substitute to having one's nearest and dearest close by, and yet I moved to New Zealand!

I have to say that I must have been really spoiled, not just by my friends but by most of the people in my life because while I'm terrible at maintenance, I was still able to keep most of them in my life one way or another. Some have fallen by the wayside, some I pretend to ignore because of some stupid reason or another (me thinking, Look at how that situation turned out!)

I don't write but I still look up their profiles (at least when I'm reminded to) and I feel that I'm not missing out. I used to think that it was a bit exhibitionistic, putting your life online like that but I'm glad for the folks who do, because at least I know they're doing fine and I'm happy to know that.

Since I've moved to New Zealand, two of my K2 Lamoninc friends and one of my childhood best friends have gotten married. One of the former is a mom now. These are milestones that we all would have been rabidly speculating on (ok, who's next?) if we were all together again. But we're not, and all we have is technology.

Time I got off my ass and started blogging again!

First Week: 01. b.Shawarma Pizza: where all the good lambsmeat in New Zealand goes

2006-08-11T14:35:00.000+12:00

Take this and stick it in your pizza!

If you get your lamb from Foodtown like we often do, it's always a little disappointing to realise that the best lambs' meat in New Zealand is reserved for export. Fortunately, we had a detour to a restaurant after we had dropped our bags off at the hausje. You can walk to Duiven's town center, which, according to Gijs has changed a lot since he left. There is a shopping center, an Albert Heijn but also something that hasn't changed much - a 500-year old church. Being 7 o'clock there wasn't much that was open, except for a place that will live on in Gijs' memory as the home of the legendary Shawarma Pizza. I let Gijs enjoy a meal that he has been craving for with ever increasing frequency as the date of our Holland trip approached, while I opted for the lamb and potatoes with Marian, who said it was "Heerlijk!"

Tasting the Shawarma pizza, I wondered if my tastebuds had been dulled by too much airline food (the really powerful garlic taste of Korean bibimbap) but I can't remember what that pizza tasted like. Why is it that everything tasted so much better if you were on holiday, or better yet, if you were coming home? Some sort of invisible sauce seems to layer itself on everything you eat when you're in the place where you grew up. To be perfectly honest, I was steeling myself for Dutch food - which from the previews I have had of it from Gijs - seemed to promise a lot of mashed vegetables and oil. But fortunately, I also knew of Gijs' mom's cooking. I never knew of any woman who could whip up an excellent bolognese sauce with the limited resources of a trailer kitchen except for Marian - I remember I kept the rest of the sauce in a jar to take home with me.

I'm a little iffish about food - I used to be a regular gourmand, eating like a horse and feeling confident that my weight would stay at 128lbs which it has for most of my life except for a brief time when I lost 10lbs and kept it off while I was in Kuala Lumpur because of the heat, the absence of pork and the inability of my stomach to keep down anything that was too spicy. But to be frank, I've lost my love for eating in NZ. I gained 15lbs, I think, because they just use different ingredients here, ingredients that my supposedly superhuman metabolism can't process. Apparently, I'm not alone. I was told by a nurse that the South Asian population in NZ has increasing health problems like obesity and cardiovascular disease. The New York Times also reported that Asians were at an increased risk of obesity and diabetes when moving to the West. I used to consider all this preoccupation with diet as hogwash and would tell anyone so while I finished off another quart of ice cream, but when my asthma came back I had to eat my own words, so to speak.

Dutch food isn't exactly known for being healthy yet while in Holland I started going back to my normal weight. I even developed an enormous liking for bitterballen - a balled, breaded creamy ragout that for all I know is completely made up of mystery-meat (I forget the other one that's made of horsemeat - but I ate that too and loved it!) You also have to factor in that we had humongous pancakes whenever we could (mmmmmm, lekkerr!) and that we ate three times a day - although it wasn't always just bitterballen, and pannenkoeken and lamb steak. Each morning, we would dig into the fridge and bring out containers of carpaccio, bacon and ham along with the little tubs of tonijnsalade (tuna salad), kipkerriesalade (chicken curry salad) and my favorite eiersalade (egg salad). Then we'd shove the bake-fresh bread in the oven, get coffee or tea, pour that wonderful multivitamin juice from Albert Heijn and slather on the jam, cream cheese or butter. I must not forget the lovely soft-boiled eggs. This breakfast would be enormous enough to last us through early afternoon. Then in a little while it would be time for even more bitterballen and beer!

This all seems simple enough - nothing really out of the ordinary or that much different from what you can get in New Zealand except that in Holland they take their poultry, dairy and meat a little bit more seriously. When they say free-range, they actually show pictures of hens wandering blissfully around a farm (at least until culling time). I also noticed that milk in Holland tastes the same back home - that is, there is no strange gamey aftertaste. Normal milk is called half-volle while the other kind is something I'd much rather stay away from. I tried karnemelk once, it's supposed to be healthy and I thought if it tastes like yoghurt how bad can it be? But just thinking about the experience now just makes my toes curl. For one thing it's unabashedly sour which inevitably made me believe that it had gone bad - and another thing, it was also very rich, like buttermilk. I have seen Gijs' sister Lotte finish two liters of the stuff and I thought that, well, I can't completely become Dutch. But given the choice between Karnemelk and failing Rita Verdonk's assimilation test....there's always Belgium, right?

But I digress. We had a lovely time in the restaurant - I watched the teenagers zip along on their upright bikes, chatting with their friends as the fabled Dutch sunlight - which made everything, even the parking lot at the community center, look like a Vermeer painting - begin to fade at the approach of 9 p.m. We piled ourselves into the car for the trip back to Colenbranderstraat and Gijs's old bedroom, where we finally surrendered to our first real slumber in two days.

First Week: 01. a.On Harry Potter Straat

2006-08-11T13:20:00.000+12:00

Before anyone asks why I'm organising the blog entries like a bloody book report, it's because I have this nasty habit of interchanging the sequence of events. And because - with the exception of the "Lightning Trip of Holland" entry - I am writing the blog entries more than one month after the fact. We are almost in the middle of August, while our trip ended in July. But to help me remember, during that long night of sleeplessness, I made an outline with bullet points and lists (yes, it is very sad). It was necessary for me to place some events out of sequence because they related better to others and it was better this way for purposes of clarity, but enough! On with the entries!

The way Gijs put it ("I'm a country boy, I grew up in the country - I hate being in the city!"), I was rather expecting that we would have to put on boots - or clogs - to make our way to the family abode. And yet I've also seen pictures of Colenbranderstraat (Coal-burning Street) the place where Gijs grew up in. He had warned me that it wasn't like New Zealand, where houses were detached and had their lawn all around. I guess memories and experiences tend to get a little muddled when it comes to things that are close to us - like home. Because although the hometown of Duiven (Doves) was indeed not a metropolis, it was a sweet little town that had everything. Marian gladly pointed out the Intratuin (a huge garden center), the IKEA, the Makro - which were conveniently close to the expressway and happily situated beyond the town center where it wouldn't rob the residential area of its charm. Did I say sweet little town? Apparently it's the fastest growing housing development in that part of Holland.

I quickly learned that in the Netherlands, they had somehow managed to preserve authentic bucolic feeling, although at first it would be very hard to think that when going through the expressway where several hulking, industrial buildings faced each other in a staring contest. But then again the dreary bits would be interspersed with little farmhouses, several cows (sorry, not as much sheep here) and the occasional windmill. When we finally turned into the uitgang (exit) for Duiven, I caught my first glimpse of that very Dutch predilection: the functional cyclist. You have to avoid them as you go through several roundabouts - oftentimes the red cycling lane is separted from the main road by a canal or a bit of grass, but they share the crossings and the aforementioned roundabouts which can be a little confusing. Or at least it was to me, since Holland drives on the right and enters rotundas in counter-clockwise, while it's completely the opposite down under.

I think I've memorised the drive to 60 Colenbranderstraat: we passed a tree-lined canal that reminded me of Christchurch, then the road seems to narrow as we turn right into VanGoghstraat but it only seems that way because the houses in Holland are built next to each other and they tend to be very similar (something that you would recognise about Harry Potter's Privet Drive) It was hard at first, until I learned that the way that people distinguished their homes with their gardens - one had a wooden golfer standing beneath their window, another had a flagpole. And Gijs' family home had the sweetest little garden I ever saw. It was in a corner, and through the trellis wall, a plant whose name I don't know climbed a little to the side of the brick entrance. Some poppies grew wild on the sidewalk right next to where we parked the car. We hurried in, and I finally understood what gezzellig meant.

First week: 01. The Arrival

2006-08-11T12:54:00.000+12:00

Knowing that we were approaching Holland, Gijs and I couldn't sleep. We had been flying or passing our time in airports for 30 hours but we could only manage 30 minutes of intermittent napping. The stewardesses of Korean Air were conscientious - sometimes too much so. They would interrupt sleep in order to serve scheduled meals, then order all the shades drawn to force us to sleep, just three hours before our noontime arrival. So we kept alert right above the barren wastes of Siberia, guessing which strait or ocean or sea we were flying over until the unmistakeable order of Legoland appeared below the clouds. This for me, was my first impression of Holland in the air: frighteningly organised - pixel-perfect grids interrupted by dottings of windmills and the four-leaf clover of expressways. We pressed our faces to the window - the weather was sunny, perfect and uncharacteristically Dutch or so Gijs would have me believe. And then a plane passed us - so close it almost seemed that we could touch it with our wing: this was Schiphol, one of the busiest airports in the world and perhaps the only airport after HongKong's (before being closed for the one in the Chinese mainland) to offer an authentic cold sweat inducing welcome to new arrivals.

We hurried through customs and luggage and I met for the first time in over two years, the happy couple whom Gijs calls moeders and pap. We had a drink in the sun, got nailed by a bird and an African gentleman was kind enough to lend Frans some tissue. After the Caucasian-Asian-Maori/Polynesian mix of New Zealand, I was quite surprised to see an African for the first time in a long while. Folks might disagree with me, especially ones who claim that Holland's famous tolerance is going the way of the dodo, but from that moment I thought that people were a little more aware of each other here, and a little more willing to help if a stranger got himself into some bird shit.

We drove through the motorway, and Frans and Marian dutifully pointed out the sights - one of them being this outrageous Chinese-temple style restaurant which everyone agreed was a folly of the kitschiest kind. But I was busy trying to get used to a 120km/hour speed limit, and the split second decision timing that seems to entail much of Dutch driving. In short, I was scared out of my mind! Gijs chatted on with his family while I tried to understand why people did not leave the requisite 3 second distance between cars and I realised that if you did leave enough of a space for a car to fit then someone will smoothly slide their Audi into your lane. It wasn't done recklessly and of course people signalled (if only for a second) but mind that this was done at 20km higher than most motorways in New Zealand where I don't think anyone exists who doesn't know someone who hasn't gotten into an accident. And yet, as Frans informs me, Holland is one of the safest places to drive in the world/ has the least number of road accidents in the European Union. Be that as it may, we got ourselves into two near-misses in the next few days (not our fault!)

Gijs and Lee-Yan's Lightning Trip of Holland

2006-08-11T12:48:00.000+12:00

I've often heard Gijs say, that if he could, he would drag New Zealand closer to Europe and I understand this perfectly, not least because if the Land of the Long White Cloud were to occupy say, the geographic location of England, then right now, I would not be suffering from jet lag after 24 hours flying and an 8 hour stopover. I wouldn't be writing this bit of a blog entry after a long silence either, because I'm too awake at a quarter to six, and I've been trying to sleep since 2 a.m.

Also, if New Zealand were closer to Europe, then I wouldn't feel too far away from people who have become dear to me in the month that we have spent with them. Where most Kiwis are friendly but circumspect, I've found that Dutchmen (or the particular strain of the Ijpmas and Van der Aas, their friends and other relations that I've met on our trip) are a happy noisy bunch who are continually into your business, and I've found that right now, as much as I may be normally, doggedly jealous of my own time and privacy, I've started to miss them already.

What's more, it's very cold right now, and the house (which had been the centerpiece of Gijs's proud presentation) seems too big and not too well insulated at the moment. It also looks like it badly needs an IKEA makeover. I want to go back to the gezellig house on Colenbranderstraat for a little while longer and try not to break my neck going down the stairs. I want to weekend with the Gijs' cousins in Leonen aan de Vrecht and look longingly at the mansions on the riverside while keeping an eye out for the farmer with the full bladder and the open trousers. And I want to move in permanently to one of those beautiful cottages in that park in Enkhuizen that was built for laborers at the turn of the century.

Certainly, through the same ingenuity that has kept the Dutch sea at bay, it must be possible thru engineering to pull New Zealand closer to Holland and end its desperate isolation. It's very beneficial to both sides you see - after all New Zealanders harbor such a fondness for the Continent that it prompts them to identify themselves as European on the census forms. And Dutchmen are all too prone to bemoan the smallness of their country - how cramped it is, how it's so hard to find space to breathe - well then, a quick jump to neighboring New Zealand and then they can have all the splendid man-in-nature isolation that they crave. And then maybe they can go back home and realize that being neighbors with Germany is not without it benefits - chief among them being able to have a cold pint of white beer with your waffles at 2 pm in the afternoon under the shady leaves of the forest trees.

But maybe it's all just novelty, and maybe I'm smitten with Holland because to hear Gijs and Famke Janssen talk about it, I was expecting some dreary, boring place and instead I found myself lost in a Hayao Miyazaki film - a Japanese fantasy of what Europe was like and found that - Strewth! It was real. And maybe because I've found that while I've never learned to like Rugby, I've found soccer to be endlessly diverting. But enough of that - I'm supposed to write down what happened to help me recall everything later on when the memory has begun to cloud and all the recollections start to mish-mash together.

Excuses, excuses!

2006-08-11T10:49:00.000+12:00

Yes it's been a long time - and a lot of things have happened that we haven't said anything about. Blogging ought to be a regular exercise that forces you to take yourself out of the demands of everyday - dammit! But indeed - we have been swamped. For one I've started my own graphic/web design firm in November of last year (ArgentOrange) and belying most expectations - it had been a pretty busy start-up and I was lucky enough to get a few jobs from the start. Blog time became "office-administration-and-figuring-out-the-New-Zealand-tax-system" time since I'm too much of a skinflint to hire an accountant.

And right after that, we went to Holland. Ah Europa! But then as holiday-makers would be familiar with, we kinda got stuck in a funk after that. We were both a bit down in the mouth Gijs and I - I do believe that after a great holiday, you need another holiday to get over the end of the last one. I tried to fix the memories we had by writing stuff down while trying to get over the jetlag (see next post) but for some reason I lost the file and only just found it recently again.

So in some installments, here it is: Gijs and Lee-Yan's Lightning Trip of Holland (and a little side trip to Rome)!

Thank you, David Byrne.

2006-01-26T15:08:00.000+13:00

My first memory of David Byrne was watching him on VH1 (some proto MTV channel in 1987) during a live performance with the Talking Heads. He was dressed in a bizarre coat (pastel-colored in those days of Don Johnson and Miami Vice) with enormous shoulder pads that made him look like a real-life version of a Dick Tracy thug.

Since we only had bland state TV that was perennially interrupted by broadcasts from "the President" (shades of Big Brother) before the revolution, we were quite unprepared for that visual. We hadn't gone through Punk and we didn't have any sense of irony. And so when David Byrne and his tremendous suit jacket filled the screen, it was like looking at a car wreck. My mom crossed herself and said, "Poor man, he must be deformed."

I'm writing about David Byrne because he wrote a sensitive and insightful entry in his journal about my much-maligned country. Because I get tired of hearing the same old negative shtick from people who haven't even been there, who see things in generalities (the Asian invasion, 3rd world countries, Muslims....the great big other...if it's different then it must be dangerous!) in this age of intolerance.

So I'm happy that someone dared look closer and stopped to shake a stick at visitors who have chosen to isolate them from the realities of life in Manila and pass judgement from the safety of their SUVs and gated communities (I wonder how much different Manila can be from Mumbai that visitors would feel free to walk the streets there and not in my home town.)

Mr. Byrne is planning to mount a musical with Fatboy Slim about the life of Imelda Marcos (what, her again?). Frankly, I'm sick and tired of hearing about her and her shoes (enough already) and wondering wouldn't this project - although it seems to deal with bigger themes such as "the conflation of fantasy and politics" - just hammer in a tired old nail.

For crying out loud, can't we move on? Europe keeps revisiting WWII in feature films (quick someone make a tally!) - the world seems to have decided that the only narrative worth revisiting in the long and checkered life of the Philippines is it's death tango with the Marcoses and how screwed up we have gotten as a result.

I wonder: when did the media decide that Viet Nam is not the hostile, ravaged place that it's been traditionally depicted (everyone has moved on - except maybe for some vets)? When did they wake up and realize that despite the appaling poverty in India, it's also a country that is amazingly rich in culture and tradition? Who turned on the light switch?

Maybe the internet had something to do with it. Maybe in the face of countless people demurring and saying how in fact these are some pretty amazing places to be, the media just gave up their negative shtick.

That's why although I'm quite ambivalent about the "Here Lies Love" project (which strikes me as a form of socio-historical pornography where audiences are encouraged to gasp at Filipino haplessness) for what its worth, at least David Byrne's journal entry was a little light piercing the gloom.

Click here to read: http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2005/12/philippines_mar.html

2006-01-17T09:52:00.000+13:00

Blimmin Good Movie!
(c) Gijs Ijpma

Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor)

2006-01-17T09:29:00.000+13:00

Don't know if you've seen it, but Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) screened at the Academy Cinema last Friday.

Let me just say that it's the best vampire movie I ever saw (although its not just about vampires but I wont get into the complicated mythology). And it's not because of my diminished expectations. The acting was impressive and the cinematography was astoundingly visceral - I had very interesting dreams after I saw this film. Where most effects films tend to go for self-conscious, almost preening 3D virtuosity - the FX shots in this film are blurred around the edges, tossed off and piled on in quick succession - things you would see only from the corner of your eye. Although it was sometimes showy, it was strangely never gratuitious but moody and made me feel the vodka-soaked resignation of the characters.

Night Watch set the bar high at the very first scene and I suppose it was hard to sustain the momentum throughout the film. There were a few moments when the film sagged into American action movie cliches, but thankfully that was brief and it didn't take away from my overall feeling that this film is a revelation. Hand it to the Russkies to come up with a Sci-Fi film that is multi-layered, complex and vastly entertaining at the same time.

So I guess the point of all this is: GO SEE IT!

Busy housing

2005-12-17T14:43:00.000+13:00

Two months without a word, my apologies. Moving house takes more time than expected, especially when half of the furniture and stuff still needs to be bought! most free time in the past two months have been spent on the house, though at the same time Lee-Yan has started her own company as well. no trips, only a few small outings, and hardly any time relaxing on the deck. We will need that christmas break!

Our housewarming party was a great succes. For the first time in New Zealand Lee-Yan and I could organize a decent party, in kiwi style with BBQ and BYO. I thought I would end up behind the BBQ all night, but luckily Roberts dad, Allan (thanks!), was happy to take over. In the end I hardly touched the BBQ at all...

the main purpose of this blogentry is to show off the house in its current state, with our furniture etc. so here she goes:

The house warming party. Daan and Ingrid were so friendly to borrow us there BBQ set (Thanks!), someday we'll have our own!

Allan doing the BBQ at housewarming party.
Maree seems to dislike her corn...

Us and Ingrid enjoying the views and the new deck furniture with the oil lamps during a cold spring evening.

Looking from the right side of the house towards Auckland central

Looking from the same side of the house, now facing the Big King Park.

Our little patio, a perfect place for a future spa pool...

Having our first dinner outside.

Inside the house, with our own furniture (sorry no Marcel Breuer chairs anymore)

The kitchen!

Our new House!!

2005-10-08T09:02:00.000+13:00

Have you ever had the feeling you just found something you've always wanted? that no matter what it costs, no matter what you have to do for it, you want it, now? That's how Lee-Yan and I felt when we looked at the house that we will soon inhabit.

There were many reasons for me to come to New Zealand, one of them being its splendid nature. Though Auckland itself is not the most attractive city in New Zealand, it has its charms. Dotted with many vulcano's, between 600 and 30.000 years old and most of them turned in to parkland, there is always one closeby to escape to. at the top of these vulcano's you can see the entire city and its harbours (two, one leading to the tasman sea, one to the pacific).

since living in the forests of the waitakere ranges or the beaches on the west coast is out of the question because of commuting times, the best possible place for house for us would be on one of those vulcanos next to a park. of course we realized that a place like that would probably cost more than we could afford in the coming years at least, as was shown when we had a look at a house on mt eden: ugly and not too big, but still 1.8 million dollars.

early october, we saw an advertisement on trademe (the local ebay equivalent, including rental places) which looked interesting, so we decided to have a look. in the pooring rain on a sunday, 2 pm, we tried to find the actual house. walking up an driveway demolished by heavy trucks, we encountered something that was clearly not finished, yet. banging on the doors did not give any response, so while walking around mudpools and holes in the ground we found out there was a rather pleasant finished house just behind the work in progress. this was the house on offer.

after ringing the bell we were greeted by a very kind couple, happening to be the landlords. slightly surprised that we actually would show up during such a dreadful they showed us around the house. Sur ethe bathroom looked allright, the bedroom and study were fine, but then they showed the living room, and all other houses we had a look at before suddenly seemed worthless. standing in the living room, even with pooring rain, gives a view tens of kilometers far. on a clear day, the view stretches 180 degrees, from one harbour in the distance to the other. again on a clear day, the living room and the brilliant wooden deck in front of it, merge into one space, as the doors open 4 metres wide.

the house is located at the ridge of a crater of a long extinct vulcano, with only a few houses 20 metres below us, visible if you hang over the edge of the deck. on the right side of the house, from the kitchen and the extension of the deck, the house faces the Big king park, which covers half of the vulcano. the work in progress on the other side is the house that's currently being built by the landlords, an architect and a graphic designer, who will be moving to the hopefully finished ground floor the week before we move in.

Though lee-yan and I made up our minds easily about the house, and the landlords were pleased with our drewling eagerness to move in, we still wanted to convince our friends Robert and Maree, to live there as well with us. regretfully, the house did have only one bathroom, which seemed to be a dealbreaker for them. the rent for the house, which is low compared to what it is, is still 50% higher than what we pay now, so we would have loved to share the house. on the other hand, not taking this opportunity, was simply not an option. so we decided to take the house anyway, with the risk of reducing our saving capacity.

so, what it comes down to is that we are still looking for a third person who can share the house with us, until we have upgraded our income to such a level that we can afford the house on our own. anyone interested?

The End All and Be All of Love

2005-10-04T09:55:00.000+13:00

As promised, here's the translation of the earlier article "Ang Puno't Dulo nf Pag-Ibig" which I heartily dedicate to Frans, future Dad-in-Law.

Here goes!

Love is hilarious. It is a profound oxymoron. Everything that you can say about love, reverse it and it would still hold true.

Isn’t it confusing? Yet it’s so clear.

To love is to be happy. To love is to be sad. You don’t understand and yet you understand perfectly. There are no reasons. There are plenty of reasons. You can’t take any more and yet you can hold on for a little while longer. It hurts to love. But it’s okay. Blast, what’s it going to be?

I have a friend who said, “Love is only for stupid people.” It’s funny because even though he was a cum laude, the time came when the jackass also fell in love. So now he’s a certifiable idiot. Because everything that love touches becomes an oxymoron. Or on occasion, just a moron.

It’s not just that love is contradictory. It can also reverse everything. Powerful people become weak. The proud are humbled. The indifferent become Mother Teresa. Geniuses run out of answers. The sad become joyful. The hard become soft (and usually soft things become hard.)

It really is amusing. Especially when it comes to people who have given up on love. I noticed that if you really want to fall in love, just a say the magic words, “I don’t want to fall in love!” And PRESTO! There it is. How annoying. Why not let yourself be annoyed?

Isn’t it a laugh that you’re so good when it comes to solving other people’s problems? But when it comes to your own problems, all the advice you’ve ever given is meaningless? You realize that there’s nothing wrong with what you’ve said, and yet there anything right about it either?

People who have been struck down by the bloody arrows of love tend to contradict themselves. “I just found out what love means. And I told you so!” “Life is so good, I can just about die. And I mean, right now!”

And it doesn’t stop there. It’s good to laugh at folks who are fully aware that they can only get hurt and yet they still throw themselves off the cliff. Afterwards, when their heart is all torn out and bleeding, of course they’re not the ones to blame. It’s her! “Why did she hurt me?” along with a punch on the wall and a slam of the door.

What a bitch.

The evening will be over before I run out of amusing things to say wherever love is concerned. It’s only because I’ve encountered it for so many times that I can say that I’m already an expert.

And yet I still don’t know anything.

But the funniest thing of all is that you can bet all your possessions that if love wants to make a joke, you’re definitely going to be the punch line.

Isn’t it funny?

How tragic.

Just a bunch of photos

2005-09-29T17:18:00.000+12:00

Waterfall on coromandel peninsula, close to coromandel township

During one of the walks in coromandel township...

Anawhata beach on the west coast, 40 minutes drive from home

Lion Rock on Piha Beach, 35 minutes drive from home

Typical Kiwi view

On skiing, BBQ’s and driving (or: the relation between Zoidberg and the ozone layer)

2005-09-26T16:58:00.000+12:00

Tuesday morning, 20th of September, the NZ Herald writes: “Dig out those winter woollies”. Fresh snow in the skifields of the north island (all but one located on one active volcano, Mt Ruapehu) always causes a certain urge in me to go and enjoy the holy white powder before it turns into sludge or ice. I managed to persuade Lee-Yan to come along and take Friday off, and both our bosses apparently didn’t mind at all (will we not be missed?).
So off we went. We filled up our much appreciated Moving Castle with petrol and surprising amounts of luggage, and headed for Ohakune, at the foot of Mt Ruapehu. My estimate of 4 hours drive was a bit to optimistic, as was my target departure time, so we ended up arriving at 2:30 pm, while the fields close at 3:45 pm (Tea time for the liftboys?) . We did play a bit in the snow, made some nice pictures of a waterfall on the mountain, but paying 43 dollars for one hour of skiing wasn’t really an option. So the next day we woke up early, drove up the mountain, until traffic kind of stopped. A long line of cars was being directed to carpark number 8, which in itself was an indication of what was coming, since car park 1-7 had all filled up already. To cut a long story short, 2 hours and 45 minutes later, after waiting in line for the lift pass, and 3 lifts, I finally reached the top of the skifield, while we where supposed to leave at 12:30 because of a BBQ appointment in napier at 6 pm, 200 km away. To summarize my skiing experience, I waited for a total of 3 hours and 30 minutes that day, I skied for about 35 minutes, and changed color from white to red so quickly it would make Dr. Zoidberg proud.

I must say though, despite all the waiting, that my experience with skiing in the southern hemisphere has vastly improved since the last attempt two years ago, when my left rental ski decided to shed its bindings onto the slope. Maybe next time I’ll try the south island, where the mountains are created by colliding tectonic plates as with the Alps and the Himalayas instead of damping holes in the earths crust.

Luckily, the trip was not confined to skiing alone, as usual we overbooked the available time, by trying to cramp 1100 km of driving in a three day weekend, all through mountainous terrain. Our next stop was Napier, though first we had to try and drag our Moving Castle across one of the most beautiful roads I have ever seen. While the road started with magnificent views of Mt Ruapehu, the continuing trip across rolling green mountains of up to 1700 meters stuffed with sheep and their lambs was simply amazing. At the bottom of every valley would be a meandering river with the clearest waters, and in more than 3 hours drive we encountered about 5 cars in total. Part of the road was unpaved, but the 4 wheel drive of the Castle did superb work and guided us through 120 km of dirt track in less than 2 hours.

As always we reserved our spot in a Top ten Holiday park, and after some freshing up we were off to see Lee-Yans former Manager, Mitch, and her husband, who were having a Barbie (BBQ) that evening. With the abundance of foreigners in Auckland its always good to spent some time around real Kiwi’s, especially when they are nor from Auckland. We were welcomed as if we were long lost family and had the most extensive BBQ I have seen in a long time. On an evening like this I understand again where Kiwi’s get their friendly reputation from. We both spoke extensively to all people at the party, even though I didn’t know any of them before hand and Lee-Yan only knew Mitch. Later that night one of the guests, also from Napier, brought Lee-Yan and me up to a mountain from which we could see the entire Hawke’s Bay, where Napier and its neighbouring town Hastings are located. A suitable end to a wonderful day after all.

Ang Puno't Dulo ng Pag-ibig

2005-09-22T17:15:00.000+12:00

I just had to re-post this. I got it from ClickMoMukhaMo who in turn got it from someone's email. It was just so eloquent and so Filipino. There are barbershop philosophers and then there are people who muse on life while standing at the corner sari-sari (variety) store smoking a Marlboro. Hopefully I'll get to translate this for all of who who can't read Filipino.

Ang Puno’t Dulo ng Pag-ibig

Nakakatawa talaga ang love. Isa siyang napakalaking oxymoron. Lahat ng pwede mong masabi sa kanya, baliktarin mo at totoo pa rin.

Ang labo di ba? Pero ang linaw.

Masaya magmahal. Malungkot magmahal. Di mo naiintindihan pero naiintindihan mo. Walang rason. Maraming rason. Di mo na kaya, pero kaya mo pa rin. Masakit magmahal. Pero okey lang. Leche, ano ba talaga?!

May kaibigan ako, sabi niya dati “Love is only for stupid people.” Nakakatawa kasi laude ang standing niya, pero dumating ang panahon, na-in-love din ang hunghang. At ayun, tanga na siya ngayon. Lahat kasi ng nahahawakan ng love nagiging oxymoron din. O kaya paminsan, nagiging moron lang.

Hindi lang kasi basta baliktaran ang pag-ibig. Lahat ng bagay nababaligtad din niya. Lahat ng malalakas na tao, humihina. Ang mayayabang, nagpapakumbaba. Ang mga walang pakialam, nagiging Mother Teresa. Ang mga henyo, nauubusan ng sagot. Ang malulungkot, sumasaya.Ang matitigas, lumalambot. (At tumitigas din ang mga bagay na madalas nama’y malambot.)
Nakakatawa talaga. Lalo na kapag dumadating siya sa mga taong ayaw na talaga magmahal. Napansin ko nga eh. Parang kung gusto mo lang ma-in-love ulit, sabihin mo lang ang magic words na “Ayoko na ma-inlove!” biglang WACHA! Ayan na siya. Nang-aasar. Magpapaasar ka naman.

Di ba nakakatawa rin na pagdating sa problema ng ibang tao, ang galing galing mo? Pero ‘pag problema mo na yung pinag-uusapan parang nawawalan ng saysay lahat ng ipinayo mo dun sa namomroblemang tao? Naiisip mong wala namang mali dun sa mga sinabi mo. Pero bakit parang wala ring tama?

Bali-baliktad din ang nasasabi ng mga taong tinamaan ng madugong pana ng pag-ibig. “Ngayon ko lang nalaman ganito pala. Sabi ko na eh!” “Ang sarap mabuhay. Pwede na ‘ko mamatay. Now na!”

At hindi lang ‘yon. Ang sarap din pagtawanan ng mga taong alam naman nilang masasaktan lang sila eh magpapatihulog pa rin sa bangin ng pag-ibig. Tapos ‘pag luray-luray na yung puso nila, siyempre hindi sila yung may kasalanan. Siya! “Bakit niya ‘ko sinaktan?” May kasama pang pagsuntok sa pader yon, at pagbabagsak ng pinto.

Hayop talaga.

Mauubos ang buong magdamag ko kakasabi ng mga bagay na nakakatawa ‘pag pag-ibig na ang pinag-usapan. Ang daming beses ko na kasi siya nakasalubong kaya masasabi ko nang eksperto na ‘ko.

Pero wala pa rin akong alam.

Pero ang pinakanakakatawa sa lahat ay ang katotohanang kapag gusto magpatawa ng pag-ibig, ipusta na mo na lahat ng ari-arian mo dahil siguradong ikaw ang punchline.

Nakakatawa no?

Nakakaiyak.

Finally! Decent pictures of the DCRC dinner

2005-09-22T13:26:00.000+12:00

I love my Coolpix, I waited ages to buy one. I feel particularly proud that I am the owner of a camera that swivels like a rubik's cube, but truth to tell, mine can't take indoor pictures worth crap: the flash range is too short and even when I do get sufficient light I still get weird video haze in the dark areas, as you can see in the earlier DCRC photos.

So thank goodness for Mr. Thomas Wong who brought his camera and made these really snazzy pics during the DCRC dinner. Now we have that evening down for pictorial posterity.

The DCRC gang with partners and family.
(c) Thomas Wong

2005-09-22T13:25:00.000+12:00

Patiently waiting for the appetizers...
(c) Thomas Wong

2005-09-22T13:24:00.000+12:00

Because there can never be enough pictures of the both of us. Someday, I'll cave in and morph our faces just to see what our kids will look like (crosses fingers and hopes they don't get my height!).
(c) Thomas Wong

2005-09-22T13:21:00.000+12:00

Dr. Ahmed and his family. The boys are certifiable heart-breakers. What beautiful kids!
(c) Thomas Wong

2005-09-22T13:20:00.000+12:00

Dan and Ingrid, ex-Amsterdam. Finally, someone who appreciates Hayao Miyazaki (Q: Is it still anime if it's produced in Korea?) and can understand why 60 euros is a small price to pay for limited edition dvd's.
(c) Thomas Wong

2005-09-22T13:16:00.000+12:00

That's Omar and Joe, another loving couple(just kidding). Omar is Dr. Ahmed's eldest and Joe is the doc's right-hand dude.
(c) Thomas Wong

2005-09-22T13:10:00.000+12:00

Alex with his lovely wife and daughter. We're so lucky to be Asian - we can have kids and still look like siblings instead of parents!
(c) Thomas Wong

2005-09-22T13:09:00.000+12:00

That's Murilai and Prasika (oh jeez, i hope I got his name right). The last time we went out to dinner at Truffles was to celebrate their engagement - and to terrify Prasika with the vision of two other couples taking over their household.
(c) Thomas Wong

2005-09-22T13:04:00.000+12:00

Ah the lovely couple. That's Robert and Maree, who will be getting married early next year - and who have misguidedly tasked me to video their big day. Naturally, lots of hi-jinks will ensue.
(c) Thomas Wong

Sophie Hatter and the Amazing Asthmatic Pooch

2005-09-13T17:56:00.000+12:00

Howl's Moving Castle

Due credit must be given to this breath-takingly wonderful movie, which inspired our decision to rename our Town Ace as such.

I can't stands no more.

2005-09-13T16:23:00.000+12:00

Lee-Yan's post:

As my friends back in the Philippines get married off one by one (there's already some speculation as to who will be the next) and plot the rest of their lives I find myself stuck in the middle of a career quagmire.

Once again: I am a web designer and a pretty darn good one if I say so. I am NOT a developer and nor will I ever want to be. My education and career experience have always been on the front-end side of things, as useless as that may seem to some people who think that anyone who can build a website can pretty much do everything else (I blame Hollywood for its idiotic depiction of webbies as spiky-haired misanthropes who can destroy the world with the push of a button) and when you undertake to correct their presumptions they do a double-take and place you under the category of "hopeless poseur".

After brief forays into flash actionscripting and a current fling with CSS (from deep misgivings to becoming a true believer - although, I harbor the same feelings toward Firefox as a Catholic would to a fundamentalist Christian) I know but a little which is enough to know how things should work but not nearly enough to fix things should it all horribly go wrong. I wonder why employers here in NZ can't underdstand the difference or simply refuse to see it because to do so would mean having to hire another person to do the back-end. Hence the current preference for developers who, with all due respect, can't design worth shit, but try to do so anyway. That would be like hiring a designer to do developer's work: the mistakes may not be evident at first but pretty soon you realize that it will never be the same quality if you just got two people and let them each do what they do best.

The whole thing has turned me into a bit of a reactionary. Whereas once I loved spending hours at work back home in Manila - largely because I enjoyed working and hanging out with and deeply respected my developer colleagues and i'd like to imagine that they liked to hang out and deeply respected me as well - now I can't wait till I find a way to return to freelance work where I can pick and choose which projects I take on and I can just generally say, "I can't do that and if you think I can then you're deeply disturbed," when someone expects me to get our site indexed in Google by the end of the month.

This has got to be the upteenth time when I've been tempted to leave off the whole web designer thing and return to my Fine Arts roots where I have every excuse to be brilliant and unreasonable. If any developer can presume that they can do what I do, then maybe its best to go back to using the good old digits and paintbrushes.

And a swell time was had by all...

2005-09-02T12:28:00.000+12:00

The Moving Castle's first adventure

2005-08-31T09:40:00.000+12:00

Auckland, City of Sails. For some reason this city never got past that rather preshistoric concept of transport. While every aucklander from 15 years and older posseses a car, and busses are readily available, getting from one place to another seems to be a daily reason for agony. Where Dutch traffic is bad during traffic hour, at least at most places the line of cars actually moves, here in auckland it just stops. Magicly, about an hour later it starts driving again, and slowly people start progressing towards their destiny.
Australian cities like sydney and melbourne have easily managed this problem by creating extensive train and subway networks, with busses for the more hard to reach places. Auckland however, still runs on single tracks, with only recently a service operating in the weekends, and during the day an on-time rate below zero. no wonder people rather stay in their airconditioned cars clouding the skies with low grade petrol and diesel fumes that clog up cyclists (as in mine) lungs.

To become part of this Kiwi/Auckland ritual, Lee-Yan and I decided it was time to join the club and buy a car as well. Lets say its part of the assimilation process. After a few less succesfull attempts I succeeded in winning an auction on a Toyota Townace, a wonderful NZ$ 2000 bus, almost perfectly adapted for auckland values: it's awfully thirsty in petrol, it fits up to eight people but is mostly used by only one or two, and during traffic we have the comfort of lounge setting couches, electric curtains and a wonderful view over other miserable cars. And its easy to find back in a busy parking lot.

So that weekend, our Moving Castle would go on its maiden voyage, towards the bay of islands. Filled up with oil and petrol, off we went. Enjoying the views in the Wenderholm region north of Auckland the car showed it was capable of driving some lightly mountainous area, so with the excuse of testing I took the car to the limit. And apparently beyond...

Just north of Warkworth we decided it was time for a coffee brake on top of a nice hill with a cute little kiwi-cafe. After turning of the engine Lee-Yan noticed a smell similar to burning rubber and a constant noise coming form the engine compartment. Being certain I shut off the engine I checked the car and found fluid, steaming hot, leaking from under the passenger seat. Since we are talking about a genuine bus, lifting the passenger seat gives access to the engine, where we found that the engine coolant was boiling over. And kept on boiling over. Only 20 minutes later when AA services arrived, the fluid stopped boiling, and the cause was determined: clogged coolant lines. it's allways a nice feeling to have something you bought less than a week ago break down on you.

While the bay of islands was still a two hours drive away, it seemed unlikely for us to reach that far, thus we decided to take a gamble and drive the bus home in easy steps, giving the engine time to cool off. Which meant un unplanned visit to warkworth, one of those idylic kiwi townships. These are the moments you realize that New Zealand isn't such a bad place after all. Stranded for a few hours at a random place, and finding yourself easily amused with a strawl along the riverbanks in the centre of town, a continued strawl up the park pathway leads through the forests to another part of town, where those damn lucky kiwi's have there house on top of the hill looking out over the river valley and the ocean a few kilometers further on. Bell-birds and Tuis and fantail birds follow you everywhere, and allthough it is midwinter (July = Januari) the snowbells (or whatever the translation of Sneeuwklokjes is) and several unidentified pink blossoming trees fill the streets. Sometimes it seems like a scene from a Stephen King novel, with no-one on the streets, in a 1950's suburbian setting of wooden countryhouses and wide empty streets with the odd pickup truck. So far no encounters with cannibalistic clowns though...

So after all, while our moving castle did not bring us to our original destination, the country was so friendly as to provide us with a good alternative, as it probably has done for many other travellers. These are the experiences that make you feel like your allways on holidays, eventhough your supposed to call the country home.

And with the car parked in front of our house, we decided to spend the night in the back anyways. no complaints so far.

P.S. The repair bill was over 400 NZ$

Oh by the way, this is us.

2005-08-31T09:34:00.000+12:00

Gijs & me on a banca from Sangat Island Palawan Philippines
(c) Ijpma-Marquez

Into the depths of the Auckland City Library

2005-08-30T14:27:00.000+12:00

Lee-Yan's Post:

If you're living in a country of 4 million people whose economy depends on a lot of surly farmers, then you can guess that it would be pretty hard to find someone to relate to, especially if your interests put you squarely in the left-centrist, intellectual wannabe category.

Thankfully, there are those few moments when you realize that the world is not such an unfriendly place, where you can rub elbows with white-haired seniors, fondle discarded matteboards, breathe in the familiar scent of decaying paper and imagine that you were working for the Auckland City Central Library.

Gijs, Robert (Gijs' friend and colleague), Maree (Gijs' friend and collegaue's fiancee) and I got signed up for a tour of the Central City Library and we drooled at the shelves of new books that had yet to be touched or dribbled over. Apparently, Auckland has a budget of 3 million dollars on which to spend on acquiring new books, cd's, dvd's, magazines, databases, journals and other stuff and it falls to a special bunch to decide which items to purchase. It's kinda like being given a huge budget to blow on the things that I love the most.

Most compelling was the tour on book binding and restoration. After the pages are stitched (which incredibly, is still done by hand using a curved needle like the ones they use in surgery) taped and glued together, the spine is clamped and pounded into a rounded shape. I always assumed that bound bookspines were flat, but apparently they only become that way after use. The whole binding area, with its acid-free matteboards, foamcore and card stock was not unlike my old college workrooms where professors would exhort us to master the craft, to do everything by hand and to ignore the sting as we sliced our fingers open with x-acto knives. I thought I'd come home.

There was a severely water-damaged book that was awaiting restoration: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrated with plates from Gustave Dore at whose feet I worshipped since I found a collection of his engravings used as ClipArt (ugh). I don't know how old the book was, but it had gotten to its current sorry state when (as the library staff tell it) during some constuction work, a forklift had managed to get into an elevator shaft and fall all the way down to the basement where it burst a water main, took down several shelves of elephantine (really, really big) books and flood the entire basement which was filled with old books. Trying to put a positive spin on what had clearly been a traumatic experience, our lady-guide said that it was like having the older books washed as they would have been during restoration. If I had been head librarian, I would have found whoever left that forklift and dropped the entire Card Catalogue on their heads.

We dutifully filed into the basement, with Gijs and Robert looking for the Oompah-Loompahs. Sadly there were none to be found. I almost fancied myself a troll, or Gimli the Dwarf, shunning the sunlight and human company to be amongst my precious. There a sullen lady down there who reminded me of a troll, and it was rather like a mine down there, with this little rail sytem they rigged up to send stuff above ground. Before the library staff simply searched through the shelves and ran up and down to bring up requested books. Can you imagine what it would have been like to have some nutter tell you, after all that trouble, that it wasn't quite the book they were looking for? Kill. Maim. Destroy. But thankfully for all fickle library users, they only have to look for the book, wrap it then place it in a blue box, press a button and it snakes up through the ceiling into the ground floor desk. Gijs had to be careful that he wouldn't be hit by a stray book rushing overhead.

At the end of it, I begged to be apprenticed to the conservator ("I'll give you my first born son," I wanted to offer) and secretly made plans to ditch my web-designer gig and get a job at the library. At least I would be hanging out with folks who UNDERSTOOD ME, notwithstanding the petulant whining.

2005-08-30T14:24:00.000+12:00

Lee-Yan's Log:
Let's face it - when you design websites for a living there comes a point wherein you really would prefer to do something else on your downtime, or when half the office has flown the roost and you've read all of the articles in nytimes.com, that you would much rather not be clicking the pen tool in Photoshop. And so I take the easy way out and decide that our website would be a blog that Gijs and I can just upload photos to. Honey, I promise to tweak the CSS someday so there's at least a semblance of customization.