I Survived a Japanese Game Show

Is there anyone here who watches this show ?

Hubby and I started watching this last night and we are so addicted. The first episode showed the American contestants - who didn't know what they signed up for - being flown to Japan. Thinking that they were going to visit a popular TV set, they were ushered into a studio and were surprised to see that *they* were the show.

haha!

If you have time, do watch this. It's so aliw. And so unbelievable.

Watch it, please :)

and on that note, Hai! MAJIDEEEEE!

labels

A member in a support group I belong to raised the question a question about manners and how to handle delicate situations. She asks, how should parents handle situations where they're asked "Why [child1] is smarter/prettier/more intelligent than [child2] ?"

I'm actually looking forward to reading the feedback from the other members because as a child, my siblings and I have been in plenty of situations where we get compared with each other and with other children / cousins and having suffered through these humiliating moments, I still do not feel equipped to deal with this if this happens again.

So far as labels go, my older sister is the pretty one. She gets asked to be part of the bridal party or to join the Santacruzan (heehee, but she never did). Being petite, she also has the luxury of looking younger than her actual age, to the point that when her friends would see us together, nobody would believe that she's actually 8 years older than me.

A very tactless friend even went so far as to say "come on ? Are you kidding me ? She's your shobe ? But she looks older... uh... este.. you look so much younger than her!" she then turns to me and asks me to my face "come on, you're the Achi no ?" I couldn't say anything.

I am the smart one. My parents can go on and on about my achievements and the awards I've received. A typical conversation between my parents and friends or relatives would go something like:

Mom: this is my eldest daughter
Others: wow, she's so pretty! so beautiful and so lady-like!
Mom: and this is my younger daughter, matalino yan, she's done these [list of achievements]

So ano ? Hindi ako pretty ?

I felt bad that Mom felt the need to add something to prop me up. I used to resent being with my sister. I didn't want to go out with her or be introduced with her because just standing beside her makes me ugly.

Now that I'm older (and wiser, hopefully), I understand that it was hard on her too. If I felt some resentment ("hindi ako pretty?"), then I'm sure she felt it too ("hindi ako matalino?"). I vowed to myself that I will never fall into the trap of comparing my children.

Unfortunately, I now find myself doing the same thing with my nephews. When asked to describe my sisters' two boys, I would say that Lance, the eldest one, is the booksmart and mabait one. Lyle, the younger boy, is the streetsmart and naughty/pilyo one. It's true though.

Paano kaya to ? What's the best way to handle this without hurting anybody's feelings ? In my nephews' case, the labels just shows off their strengths and it's not a criticism. I only hope that they see it this way too.

Let's Eat!

Tagged by Sheryll of Our Family Adventure and I just had to add in some comments :P

-START HERE -Eaters: kathyrazzi kathycot buhaymisis whenmomspeaks kathycotcooks my precious niche just me.. eds edsmommylife Me,Myself+2 Le bric à brac de Cherie Chez Francine La Place de Cherie My Angels World, Life is Good and Beautiful, From This Side. Our Family Adventure! Popcorn's Thoughts ADD YOUR BLOG HERE!

1. Chicken sa McDo, Jollibee, or KFC?

• In order of preference: KFC (hot & crispy), Jollibee (love the skin)

I remember when I used to go out with friends during our college days, we'd go to Philcoa & head out to Jollibee or McDo to have lunch. H and I usually voted to have lunch at Jollibee because L doesn't eat Jollibee chicken's skin, so hati na kami ni H sa chicken skin niya :P

Those were good times *smile*.

2. Pepsi, Coke, or rootbeer?

• Pepsi and/or Coke. I swear I don't even notice the difference! I've heard though that if they're both warm (room temperature), Pepsi tastes better and that if they're both ice-cold, Coke tastes better.

3. Greenwich, Pizza Hut, or Yellow Cab?

• None. I'm not a pizza fan. But if I have to choose and I'm really really hungry, I might have to go with Greenwich, sila yung merong thin crust diba ?

4. Adobo, sinigang, or nilaga?

• Nilaga

5. Beef, pork, or chicken?

• Beef.

Though, hubby and I are discovering the joys of chicken in an effort to eat healthier, we have quite a few recipes in our repertoire now.

6. Starbucks, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, or Gloria Jean’s?

• Starbucks sa Pilipinas and anywhere else.
• Dunkin Donuts' sa US - has anyone tried their coffee ? Sarap ah.

7. Cornflakes, Honey Stars, or Milo cereal?

• Cornflakes

8. Goldilocks or Red Ribbon?

• Goldilocks, I miss their plain mocha cakes.

9. Tokyo Tokyo, Teriyaki Boy or Rai Rai Ken?

• Teriyaki Boy for the food
• Tokyo Tokyo for their iced tea.

10. Take Out or Dine In?

• Dine-in

— END HERE —

BerryBlitz, Arlene you're tagged if you're interested :)

Can't think of anybody else to tag right now, so if interested, please tag yourself and leave me a comment so I can check out your answers :)

At the dentist's

Hubby and I went to our dentist last weekend to have our teeth cleaned and checked out. After our cleaning sessions, our dentist pronounced us cavity-free, yay!

On our way out, we walked by the Pinay receptionist who asked us how it went, I told her that we don't have any cavities.

Sabi nya, "walang cavities ? ay :( ".

Aba, sad siya ?

So I said to her "isn't that good ? diba yan yung goal ? na dapat walang cavities ?"

"oo nga, pero ibig sabihin matagal na ulit bago ko kayo makita."

Haha, so sweet (or enterprising?).

Ayos ;)

I found a post that leads to a reading level rating tool on Tsinay's site. Even though I cringed at the thought of what the result could possibly be - with all the Tagalog words that I use every now and then - I pushed ahead and tried this out anyway.






So I got a "College (Undergrad)" Reading level rating. But wait....

I'm not so sure if this is a good rating, after all, this doesn't really say that I write like an undergrad / college graduate but rather that a college / undergrad reading level is required to understand my posts. Or is this really the same thing ?


ah, basta :)

sigh.

I talk a lot.

And I mean a LOT.

But lately, since the project started moving forward this Monday, my days have become so long! I start my days really early now at 9am (and this is early, considering that I end my days late too because I also work & coordinate with our offshore staff).

Early morning meetings are usually with our company upper management & sales team, talking about the contract that's being drafted. The sales guy keeps pushing us to give more freebies under the guise of "protecting both the client and the company". Duh, he wants to take away all the conditions in our SLA to give the client some level of comfort. Where, if I may ask, does protecting the company come in ?

Mid afternoon to late afternoons are spent talking with the mid-level executives who have been assigned to complete tasks in the earlier meetings. I sometimes talk to our offshore company's manager too - who keeps such strange hours, I think... I don't even know if he gets any sleep at all because he's always working.

Last Tuesday was the worst. The phone kept ringing and I swear, I did not have more than 5 straight minutes without the phone to my ear. I even got calls from clients who don't normally call me, correction, have never called me ever. And at the same time I was on the phone, I also had these chat sessions with our developers and our global support team going on too. I was even in a conference call while I was having my lunch. I didn't get to take a break until dinner time and hubby had to get some takeout for that. And after the 1.5 hour dinner break (whew!), I went back to work again to prepare for a 10:30 meeting with Manila. I had to beg off at around 12mn because I couldn't think straight anymore.

I can be very talkative and I usually have a lot of things to say. But this week has been very taxing on my vocal cords. I was so tired of talking that there was a point last night (I was working on my notes for the meeting with Manila) when hubby came into my home office and I just held my hand out as a signal for him to stop. I looked at him and shook my head.

Hubby, the dear man, understood and left me to myself.

*sigh* Thank you, hubby. I *heart* you.

We *heart* the Grill

Hubby and I are loving our grill.

This grill is a George Foreman indoor-outdoor grill that I received as a birthday gift 4 years ago.

I know, I know. I didn't use it immediately because I didn't want to just leave it outside (balcony) permanently and be exposed to the elements. Yet, I felt too tamad to bring it in inside after every use (after airing it out to get rid of most of the food smells, of course).

Anyway, we decided to use this last July 4th and boy, oh, boy, we're great .. correction.. HUGE fans!

So far we've grilled baby back ribs, corn, chicken bbq, pork chops, asparagus, bacon, and now, our latest dish - Korean BBQ (marinated short ribs, recipe to follow).

We had doubts about the electric part at first because, after all, there's this notion that fire-grilled food is always better than those grilled through an electric grill. Well, there's not a whole lot of difference and you still get the dark (seared) lines across the meat anyway.