If I Were An Owl, I Wouldn’t Have These Problems

April 21, 2010 at 6:02 pm | Filed under bitchin' a ride

BAD HAIR DAYS. My resolve to grow my hair/not get a haircut the first half of this year is wearing thin. I’m just hoping that it’s PMS (even my face is bloated, for chrissakes) that’s making my hair look all wrong all the time. The heat, the sweating, the humidity, my ointment (see next item)— AUGH! These mornings, I just want to pull my hair out.

TINEA FLAVA aka tinea versicolor aka sun fungus aka an-an. I have it. It’s very embarrassing and until it’s been cured (I have a smattering of spots on my left shoulder, my nape, my back, and a few on my chest area), I have to cover up IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER. Ridiculous, considering this is caused by the summer heat.

It’s a common, harmless skin infection caused by a yeast called Malassezia furfur, but is neither contagious nor due to poor hygiene. Nearly everyone has naturally occurring malassezia on their skin, but when it changes from the dormant yeast form to the more active mycelial form, then spots can appear. Source.

This mild infection is caused by a slow-growing yeast called Malassezia furfur or Pityrosporum orbiculare. This yeast normally grows on the skin without causing any problem. However, in warm and humid environment, it grows in abundance to cause an infection. Source.

The boyfriend was all “how do we fix yooooou!!!” when I told him about my skin, erm, condition. I’ve been dealing with an-an ever since I was old enough to care so it’s not the end of the world for me. My recent beach trip actually worsened my, erm, condition and guess what! I’m going back to the beach this weekend! Tanning worsens tinea flava =/

FAT FAT FAT. I need weight loss supplements, plz. I can’t seem to keep the weight off! I would like to work out but the heat (and yes, even nights here get unbearably warm) makes me lazy and wears me out and makes me want to sleep and makes me want to give a handful of excuses why I can’t work out.

Folks, the time is 6pm and it’s 33 degrees (Celsius) outside.

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Quick Facebook Rant

April 5, 2010 at 2:29 pm | Filed under bitchin' a ride, the internets

When a person I haven’t the slightest clue about sends me a message on Facebook saying they find me a “cool” or “interesting” “girl” or “person” and asks to be added as a friend, their message is automatically ignored. Not to be a bitch but just because we have a handful of mutual friends or because we grew up in the same town, it doesn’t mean I’m going to add you. I’m sorry I can’t be your Facebook friend and all, nothing personal, it’s just the way it is.

What I really can’t stand is after I ignore these people, they still persist. A follow up message, a poke. I don’t know you at all, you don’t know me, being part of each other’s list of Facebook friends won’t magically turn us into friends friends, I don’t want to be your friend (and after reading this, you probably won’t want to be my friend, too), you look like you have neck acne, and your hair is ugly. Go away.

PS: STOP POKING ME.

PPS: Online friends who are adding me, please don’t be offended if I haven’t accepted your friend requests. I have 262 at the moment and I’m too lazy to go through them, to be honest.

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I Have A Stupid Case of FML This Week

March 12, 2010 at 3:03 pm | Filed under bitchin' a ride, photos

1)

I noticed my purple loafers felt a little weird while I was on my way to work today. I paused to check it out and noticed that the stupid kitten heel (I hate kitten heels, I tell you) on the left pair was slowly detaching itself from the rest of the sole. I wasn’t anywhere near the office yet (I was actually walking through Gateway Mall to get from one train station to another, heh) so I dropped by a hardware store to buy some contact cement. I silently told my shoes to keep its shit together until I get to the office so I could do the necessary quick fix.

Fortunately, it did. Of course, as soon as I sat down to check out the heel, it completely broke off. As if that wasn’t enough, the right pair’s heel started getting all wiggly like a loose tooth, too.

Read the rest of the entry »

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Pet Peeves, Part 2

February 25, 2010 at 9:35 pm | Filed under bitchin' a ride, lists

Thanks to the recently resurrected Man Blog Forums, I realized that I have a good number of pet peeves. I made a short list some time ago and I guess there’s a burning need to make another one. This one’s a bit longer, a compilation of my replies to a thread of the same topic over at the forums.

I don’t like it when ugly people flirt.
I am somewhat lookist and I will not apologize for it.

Girls with mustaches.
So many Filipinas have such grizzly mouths and it bothers me that it doesn’t bother them! I’ve always been a bit of a hairy girl and prior to getting myself a facial epilator (one of the best things I’ve ever bought), I would painfully pluck at the little bits of fuzz. There are several parts of a woman’s body that I believe needs to be free of hair: armpits, toes, knuckles, and upper lip (I shave my legs on weekends when I wear skirts/shorts and I will not tell you what I do with my ~*~downthere~*~).

Girls whose lipstick/lip color doesn’t match the rest of their face/their skin tone.
There was this one girl on the train who looked at me in disdain and moved away when I coughed lightly into my handkerchief (my mouth was dry and I accidentally sucked in some air). I looked back at her, saw how her gaudy metallic ocher (good lord) lipstick clashed with her skin color, and sort of just curled my lip.

Yeah, I was just kind of offended, heh.

Co-workers who stare.
When strangers stare, it’s kind of annoying (flattering, if the person is cute) but it’s easy to shrug off since they’re strangers, after all, and not someone you run into everyday. When it’s a co-worker, it’s just really rude and uncomfortable.

People who lean their backs on the train’s metal poles.
Does that pole look like your own personal backrest??? Other people need something to hold on to.

When people call me “Helgs”.
Said out loud: my name has a measly two syllables, don’t be lazy.
When typed: my name has five letters, Helgs has five letters; the A key is right beside the S key. It’s really easy.

Improper pluralization (i.e. informations, homeworks, stuffs).

People calling me “sis”.
I never really got the whole “sis” thing. Unless we really are sisters, don’t.

Motorists who don’t slow down/stop or worse, speed up when approaching pedestrian lanes.
These people need to GTFO the roads.

People who say “I love you” to everyone and all the time.
Insincere/fake compliments/flattery.
“I barely know you but I think you’re amazing and really pretty and terrific and I want to be ~*~your friend~*~ and haha, look at you in this photo, you look so funny and kind of fat! Let me give you a site about fat burner advice because you clearly need it! Hahaha, you know I’m just kidding! I love you!”

Clingy girls who play games with their boyfriends for attention.
I’d like to think that the person you supposedly love deserves a more mature approach than that.

When people introduce themselves with useless crap.
This used to weird me out while I was still in college and when I first started working my two call center jobs. We know how it goes: it’s the first day of classes/training and no one knows anyone. One by one, you introduce yourself and I swear, people come up with the dumbest things to say.

“I’m Herguh and I’m 24 and I like the color pink a lot. Spongebob Squarepants is my favorite cartoon character because I also like the color yellow and I like Channel 2 better than Channel 7. My favorite radio station is that station that most cabbies listen to. Again, my favorite color is pink. This defines me as a person.”

Another example that Ade gave:

“I’m 20% Filipino, 30% Cuban, 15% New Yorker, 5% Nigerian, and 30% Russian.”

Ridiculous.

(Admittedly, I used to do that whole I’m this, this, and this crap, chiefly to explain my very un-Filipino surname. I don’t really care nowadays. “Why’s your last name like that?” “Oh, it’s German.” “You don’t look German.” “Yeah, I don’t.”)

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FILIPINOS NEED TO BE INJECTED WITH UPPERS DURING THE EVENING UNRUSH* HOUR.

November 21, 2008 at 1:53 pm | Filed under bitchin' a ride, urban primadonna

You’d think that when you’ve been taking the same route home at the same time every evening for the past two or three weeks, you’d get the hang of things and fall into a somewhat convenient routine and expect things to be the same (with the exception of rain or some other event that brings out the stupid in everyone, like I don’t know, more rain) for forever, right?

Not really.

Last night, I left work at the usual time: 9:05ish pm. The walk from my building along Emerald Avenue to the front of Galleria (the side facing EDSA) was uneventful and normal. I smoked one cigarette, zipped past people, and arrived at the bus stop only slightly sweaty with Kat DeLuna yelling into my ears. And then I noticed something unusual: a crowd of people waiting for buses that weren’t there. It wasn’t raining. Previous nights, bus conductors had to practically beg for me to choose and get on their bus. Tonight, there were no men in yellowed white polos screaming CUBAO IBABAW! LETRE! FAIRVIEW! MALANDAY! while waving signs at me.

Weird.

I took off my hoodie and stuffed it in my bag, took out another cigarette, and weighed my options: wait for a bus or walk along EDSA to the Ortigas MRT station? I peeked down the bus stop lane and saw ONE BUS and about ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE frantically trying to board it. I exaggerate the number of people, yes, but that scene alone made me decide to take the metro. Or the train, as non-pretentious Filipinos (aka not me lol) call it.

Making it past the bus stop lane alone was a challenge. Because Filipinos have this incomprehensible tendency to block the way and hassle everyone around them, I had to elbow my way through people (also: I had put out my cigarette before doing so because I am a considerate person who isn’t the kind to blow smoke directly into people’s faces. I help old folks cross the street and open doors for women, too). Once I got past that, I then had to deal with throngs of people who had the same destination as I. Lemme change that: throngs of people who had the same destination as I, walking ever so sloooooooooooowly, ambling along the very polluted EDSA like they were having a Sunday stroll at the park…which is actually an odd thing to say, as I know no Filipinos who take Sunday strolls at the park. I mean, in my 23 years here, I have yet to do that. Maybe a Saturday or a Sunday picnic at Sunken Garden (which, by the way, needs a Wikipedia entry), yes. But a Sunken Garden Sunday stroll? LOL.

So there I was, willing my feet to match their pace while I waited for the perfect opportunity to overtake the slowpokes who seemed to enjoy breathing in the vehicular exhaust. I thought I had gotten my chance when there were no people coming from the opposite direction so I switched to the left lane, quickened my step and BAM! The dude in front of me who wasn’t exactly Speedy Gonzales switched to the left lane, too. Did he speed up? Of course, not.

I wanted to slap the back of his head.

Whenever I find myself having to deal with the (public transportation-taking) Filipino masses, I always have this scene playing in my mind: basically, I am Helga and I am in a rush to get somewhere and all these people are in my way and I need to pee real bad and I am angry and so I bust out a Barbie-pink armalite and open fire and everyone turns into fuzzy pink puffballs of lint.

Yo. How’s the job search going? HUHLOLZ.

*Or as Dante suggested: settling-in-at-your-preferred-drinking-spot hour.

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