I am constantly amazed by a human being's capacity for kindness and love.
At around 4 this afternoon, my sister received word, all the way from Batangas (which is a far 2-3 hour car drive away from Manila's busy streets) that her puppy, Rocket, has been found!
We wasted no time in packing up and leaving immediately to pick the poor baby up.
To the kind citizens who found and took care of Rocket, thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
I now trust in the kindness of strangers.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
MISSING DOG
My sister's baby, Rocket, has gone missing! This is reposted from her TUMBLR
Please help me find my puppy :’(
Last photo of Rocket taken hours before he went missing.
DESCRIPTION:
Pure bread brown poodle with beady black eyes and long legs. He answers to the name Rocket or Rocky. No ID plate but wearing a white (preventic) collar.
He was last seen in Pebble drive, Tali beach on May 16 2010 around 1:00pm. If you have friends who have houses there or were on vacation in the area the same weekend, please repost this and help me find him.
REWARD IF FOUND. You may reach me at gillianpamandanan@yahoo.com or 09062117794.
Thank you.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
2010 Presidential Elections
Just a rant.
I'm not here to promote my candidate-of-choice nor to lament how he didn't take the crown. No, that would be immature and pointless.
The people have spoken, the candidate with the most votes won. Congratulations. I have no problem with this - we are a democracy, after all. It is nothing personal. We all have our beliefs and to each their own.
I have no problem with the candidate himself, though we might not share the same views. Not once have I singled out a particular candidate, especially him, to slander or bad-mouth. Whatever points I may have made in the past are proven to be facts and not spoken lies spread like wildfire by naysayers.
All I ask in return is for the same kind of civility that we, the supporters of the losing candidates, have shown. Our candidates have conceded, and they have done so with such grace that we owe it to them to bow out in the same manner. Having the supporters of the winning candidate gloat and insult and personally attack us is not making this any easy. What have you to gain from this childish behavior? We've accepted the results, haven't we? Must you force us to say "we voted for the wrong candidate, we apologize"? Because that's not gonna happen. I accept the defeat but I take pride in the fact that I voted for who I believed would be the best candidate.
This is not a popularity contest. And this is DEFINITELY not a chicken fight. We didn't gamble money (though some may disagree), we gambled our future.
I hope desperately that I am wrong about the winning candidate. My being mistaken means all the better for my country. Who doesn't want that? My pride is not so high that I would rather be correct and have my country suffer.
Frazzled,
Essa.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
From A Daughter To Her Mother
We've had our fair share of ups and downs... but even amidst our arguments, I can see how it kills you to see me cry or distraught. You've taught me how to handle pain, how to hold my head up high with a quiet dignity that even now I find difficult. Your strength became my strength and your courage, which has never wavered, not once, became my courage. You are, by far, the most wonderful human being on the planet and I don't know how I could ever live up to you.
The best schooling I have ever received was there at your knees. You've given me the courage to not fear difference, the strength to face adversity, and the wits to holdfast to my convictions. You've molded me, and sometimes way too much that I have become bruised, but to an extent that has softened me at the edges. I am compassionate because of you. Days and nights of humiliation and pain was never present in our household, simply because you're filled with such infectious joie de vivre that it becomes near impossible to hold on to anger. You've protected me from harm, stood up at enemy lines when I couldn't anymore, all the while reading me bedtime stories and regaling me with tales of beauty and laughter and wonder and adventure.
Your generosity of spirit has always proved to be my undoing. Seeing how you interact with people and how they respond has made me want to become a better person. Memories of how cake, always divided between 6 kids, meaning there would be none for you, fills my mind. Your proclamations of "I never liked cake, anyways" never fooled us. We knew you wanted a piece but didn't want to find one of your kids lacking in any shape or form.
Your beauty, both inside and outside, is blinding that sometimes I stop in awe... just stand there and stare and try to comprehend how so close you resemble an angel. My angel. You truly are such a magnificent piece of work.
Words can never fully express how grateful and thankful I am to have been born your daughter. It's pitiful how I'm trying and failing miserably, but you've always encouraged me to do what I know best... and this is what I know.
One day, I hope to be able to tell my own children how I've learned from the best. How wonderful and kind my own mother is. How she will always be my everest. They'll laugh, surely, at the maudlin sentiment, as I did whenever you took on a more serene mood, and I'll laugh too... but deep in my heart, I know it to be true. My mother... a mother, a sister, a daughter, a teacher, an advisor, a hero.
My mother... is beautiful. Softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel.
I love you, mom. I really do. I can never say it enough. I love you.
All my love,
Your daughter, Les.
**
When I was very little
My favorite game to play
Was to dress up in your pretty clothes
To be like you in every way
Were you my special guardian angel
When growing up was hard to do?
You'd kiss away my tears
Help me face my fears
I learned what courage is about
Because of you
All that I am and hope to be
All of my dreams I could always see
In your eyes ever shining through
I'm blessed 'cause I learned from you
What it means to be a woman
You were my rock and my foundation
The light that led the way
And your little girl is a woman now
Growing stronger every day
You have a special way of seeing
From a mothers point of view
All thats deep inside of me
You inspired me to see
My wildest dreams are made for coming true
Now I've found love and I'm loved in return
And so grateful to you for every lesson I've learned
Monday, April 26, 2010
The Gruesome Origins of 5 Popular Fairy Tales
1. Little Red Riding Hood
Most modern versions of fairy tales come from two sources: The Grimm Brothers from Germany, and Frenchman Charles Perrault, the collector of the “Mother Goose” tales. The big change they made to this one was the ending. That woodsman showing up seemed a little like a third act re-write of a movie due to bad test screenings, didn’t it? Where the hell did the woodsman come from?
Well, the woodsman was a later addition to the tale. In the early versions of the story, Red and her Grandmother are dead. The. Goddamn. End. Also, in most versions the woodsman cuts the pair out of the wolf’s belly, where they’re mostly none the worse for wear despite being eaten, which implies to us the wolf in that story world eats like some sort of python, by unhinging its jaw and swallowing prey whole. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.
Much earlier versions also liked to spice up the sexuality angle of the story, by having Red outwit the wolf by performing a striptease for him while he’s lying in bed dressed as her Grandmother, and then running away while he’s “distracted” (Note to any young girls out there: if you are ever abducted and menaced by someone, DO NOT DO THIS).
Wait, it gets worse. This is the most horrifying bit that got filtered out before the tale reached both the Grimm’s and Perrault (and in fact, only made it into a few written texts). In this version, the Wolf dissects Grandmother, then invites Red in for a meal of her flesh, presumably with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti. Then he eats her, too.
2. Snow White
In the Disney film the wicked step-mother winds up dead (she falls off a cliff). So that’s pretty hardcore we guess. It’s got nothing on the Grimm version, though, where the step-mother is tortured by being forced to wear red-hot iron shoes, and made to dance until she falls down dead (you can picture the puppet thing from Saw spelling this out for her over a closed-circuit monitor).
The issue of Snow’s actual age is a point of contention as well. The Grimm’s explicitly refer to her as being seven years old when the story starts, and while there’s no firm indication of how much time has passed, it’s no more than a couple of years. So unless that’s an eight-year-old Prince Charming who comes along and rescues Snow, we’re backing away from this one before we become the subject of an NBC reality show.
The biggest change, and the bloodiest, is step-mom’s … unusual eating habits. Namely, when she asks her man to bring back the heart of Snow White, she isn’t just after proof the girl is dead. She wants to eat it. Depending on the version of the story, the Queen asks for Snow’s liver, lungs, intestines and pretty much every other major internal organ, up to and including one gruesome version where she asks for a bottle of Snow’s blood stoppered with her toe.
3. Rumplestiltskin
In the Grimm brothers’ version, taken from the oral tradition, the little man is so pissed off he stamps the floor in his little hissy fit, and gets stuck. And then, like some insane version of a Will Ferrell skit, he pulls so hard to free himself that he tears himself in half. Now, if our names were Rumpelstiltskin and some dizzy miller’s daughter had just told the whole damn room, we’d be pissed too, but we don’t think we’d get dismemberment-angry.
Not to mention, in the really early versions of the tale, Rumpelstiltskin launches himself at the girl in a rage and gets stuck … um … in her lady parts. Seriously. The palace guards all have to come and pull him out, which must have made for some awkward looks afterwards.
Also, in a depressingly large number of versions, the child is killed anyway, either by Rumpelstiltskin himself, or the guards, or someone. They weren’t big on happy endings in the Dark Ages. Plague will do that.
4. Sleeping Beauty
The first major departure in this from the version we know today is when the Princess pricks her finger on her 15 birthday. In earlier versions the Princess instead gets a piece of flax caught under her fingernail which pricks her and puts her to sleep. This might seem like a small difference but it becomes important when you consider the other major, and unsettling, change to the story.
Previous versions of the tale have the Prince who finds Sleeping Beauty think she’s so damn beautiful he just goes ahead and has his way with her right then and there. Yes, while she’s still comatose.
If that’s not disturbing enough, the rohypnol-style coupling leads to a pregnancy, and the Princess gives birth to twins, all while asleep. One of the babies, seeking momma’s milk, sucks on her finger and dislodges the flax, waking her, at which point we imagine she had a few questions.
5. Cinderella
This one goes way, way back, having been told across cultures for thousands of years before being made into numerous Hollywood movies. The identity of the Fairy Godmother changes often, and in fact she only showed up in Perrault’s version, along with the pumpkin coach and the mice attendants which were all used in the Disney version. There’s even a Chinese version of the story from around 850 AD, where “Yeh-Hsien” is given gold, pearls, dresses and food by a giant talking fish.
A famous difference in many versions of the story is the “glass slipper.” Authorities on fairy tales (who you tend not to see at parties) disagree about whether Perrault’s slipper was made of glass or fur, as the words in French (verre and vair respectively) are pronounced almost the same. It’s kind of important, because if the Prince was wandering the land looking for a lady with the perfect “fur slipper” … well, it doesn’t take Freud to figure that one out, and suddenly the Prince doesn’t look so noble.
One thing Perrault left out that the Grimm’s delighted in putting back in was the violence. The sisters, desperate to fit into the slipper, mutilate their own feet, cutting off the toes and heels all described in exquisite Germanic detail. When the Prince eventually realizes Cinderella is the one for him, birds peck out the sisters’ and mother’s eyes for their wickedness.
Most modern versions of fairy tales come from two sources: The Grimm Brothers from Germany, and Frenchman Charles Perrault, the collector of the “Mother Goose” tales. The big change they made to this one was the ending. That woodsman showing up seemed a little like a third act re-write of a movie due to bad test screenings, didn’t it? Where the hell did the woodsman come from?
Well, the woodsman was a later addition to the tale. In the early versions of the story, Red and her Grandmother are dead. The. Goddamn. End. Also, in most versions the woodsman cuts the pair out of the wolf’s belly, where they’re mostly none the worse for wear despite being eaten, which implies to us the wolf in that story world eats like some sort of python, by unhinging its jaw and swallowing prey whole. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.
Much earlier versions also liked to spice up the sexuality angle of the story, by having Red outwit the wolf by performing a striptease for him while he’s lying in bed dressed as her Grandmother, and then running away while he’s “distracted” (Note to any young girls out there: if you are ever abducted and menaced by someone, DO NOT DO THIS).
Wait, it gets worse. This is the most horrifying bit that got filtered out before the tale reached both the Grimm’s and Perrault (and in fact, only made it into a few written texts). In this version, the Wolf dissects Grandmother, then invites Red in for a meal of her flesh, presumably with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti. Then he eats her, too.
2. Snow White
In the Disney film the wicked step-mother winds up dead (she falls off a cliff). So that’s pretty hardcore we guess. It’s got nothing on the Grimm version, though, where the step-mother is tortured by being forced to wear red-hot iron shoes, and made to dance until she falls down dead (you can picture the puppet thing from Saw spelling this out for her over a closed-circuit monitor).
The issue of Snow’s actual age is a point of contention as well. The Grimm’s explicitly refer to her as being seven years old when the story starts, and while there’s no firm indication of how much time has passed, it’s no more than a couple of years. So unless that’s an eight-year-old Prince Charming who comes along and rescues Snow, we’re backing away from this one before we become the subject of an NBC reality show.
The biggest change, and the bloodiest, is step-mom’s … unusual eating habits. Namely, when she asks her man to bring back the heart of Snow White, she isn’t just after proof the girl is dead. She wants to eat it. Depending on the version of the story, the Queen asks for Snow’s liver, lungs, intestines and pretty much every other major internal organ, up to and including one gruesome version where she asks for a bottle of Snow’s blood stoppered with her toe.
3. Rumplestiltskin
In the Grimm brothers’ version, taken from the oral tradition, the little man is so pissed off he stamps the floor in his little hissy fit, and gets stuck. And then, like some insane version of a Will Ferrell skit, he pulls so hard to free himself that he tears himself in half. Now, if our names were Rumpelstiltskin and some dizzy miller’s daughter had just told the whole damn room, we’d be pissed too, but we don’t think we’d get dismemberment-angry.
Not to mention, in the really early versions of the tale, Rumpelstiltskin launches himself at the girl in a rage and gets stuck … um … in her lady parts. Seriously. The palace guards all have to come and pull him out, which must have made for some awkward looks afterwards.
Also, in a depressingly large number of versions, the child is killed anyway, either by Rumpelstiltskin himself, or the guards, or someone. They weren’t big on happy endings in the Dark Ages. Plague will do that.
4. Sleeping Beauty
The first major departure in this from the version we know today is when the Princess pricks her finger on her 15 birthday. In earlier versions the Princess instead gets a piece of flax caught under her fingernail which pricks her and puts her to sleep. This might seem like a small difference but it becomes important when you consider the other major, and unsettling, change to the story.
Previous versions of the tale have the Prince who finds Sleeping Beauty think she’s so damn beautiful he just goes ahead and has his way with her right then and there. Yes, while she’s still comatose.
If that’s not disturbing enough, the rohypnol-style coupling leads to a pregnancy, and the Princess gives birth to twins, all while asleep. One of the babies, seeking momma’s milk, sucks on her finger and dislodges the flax, waking her, at which point we imagine she had a few questions.
5. Cinderella
This one goes way, way back, having been told across cultures for thousands of years before being made into numerous Hollywood movies. The identity of the Fairy Godmother changes often, and in fact she only showed up in Perrault’s version, along with the pumpkin coach and the mice attendants which were all used in the Disney version. There’s even a Chinese version of the story from around 850 AD, where “Yeh-Hsien” is given gold, pearls, dresses and food by a giant talking fish.
A famous difference in many versions of the story is the “glass slipper.” Authorities on fairy tales (who you tend not to see at parties) disagree about whether Perrault’s slipper was made of glass or fur, as the words in French (verre and vair respectively) are pronounced almost the same. It’s kind of important, because if the Prince was wandering the land looking for a lady with the perfect “fur slipper” … well, it doesn’t take Freud to figure that one out, and suddenly the Prince doesn’t look so noble.
One thing Perrault left out that the Grimm’s delighted in putting back in was the violence. The sisters, desperate to fit into the slipper, mutilate their own feet, cutting off the toes and heels all described in exquisite Germanic detail. When the Prince eventually realizes Cinderella is the one for him, birds peck out the sisters’ and mother’s eyes for their wickedness.
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