Last night i was drinking with my black sheep cousins. I had two bottles of San Miguel under the watchful eyes of Tita Edna and Tito Manual. They called me in for dinner. I had to act like my face wasn't bright red and that I was usually this talkative and opinionated. Sheila and Nannah are giving me these cheeky smiles, I dont know what your talking about. For dinner I ate a new fish with fish sauce on my rice, tasted like milk fish but the meat wasnt as dense. It was yummy. I also ate soup with pumpkin, mince pork and some local green vegetable. I rushed, in a calm and controlled way back to my drinking partners.
Sheila: You can go now jenny, you're drinking partners are waiting for you. They have the ice ready. The only one who is missing is Tito Nene.
So I drank another two bottles. It was good talking to my cousins whom I never see. And the isnt much of a language barrier or a humour barrier either. We listened to the mellow songs on the radio (its always mellow and acoustic here) as I worked up a total of 17 mosquito bites in four days. Jimboy and jojo were saying something in the language I could barely understand and looked at my aunty's who sat in the bahay kubo a couple metres away. They were looking back too. Jojo said that they are worried because my aunties will report to my mum. They didnt feel comfortable. When the door of Tito Manual's hosue swung open, we saw they had set up the mosquito nets, meaning they are ready for sleep. it was only 11pm. Jojo again advised that I should go back, they thought they would get told off for being such a bad influence on me. Ha, bad influence. I dragged my party feet back home and sheila and nannah asked if I was drunk. Um. I've only had four beers. In the morning they were smiling at me. Asking if I had a good sleep.
Mother has already touched down in Bacolod and will arrive very shortly.
I have made a list of all the places I want to visit:
Bacolod Attractions:
Orange Gallery
Vintage Locomotives, La Carlota
Pala-Pala Market
Christmas Village
Holifena Ancestral Home
Church of Talisay
Patag Mountain
panandon river resort
shell mural and art deco of the Barangay sang Virgin or Sta. Clara Chapel
Association of Negros Producers (ANP) Showroom where you see the finest of the arts and crafts produced by Ilonggo ingenuity and artistic skill
War Memorial tours
Tai Tung Chinese school (where most of the females in my family attended.)
My Space
Arte Figuras Gallery
Museum Negrense De La Lasalle
Most of the time there is a restriction of transportation and also safety. Some places I cannot go unless we have the whole family with us, or if I have my male cousins to escort us.
I learn something new from Tito Manual almost every night. He finally understood what my Communication Design qualification degree meant I could do. He valued it and said i would be very important to manufacturers who needed to communicate to clients how to assemble a piece of furnitre. Information Design. He asked if why I had not applied for a job:
Me: I dont know, I'm not passionate about it.
Boy Boy: I think you just need inspiration
Tito Manual: I think you are afraid of failure
Me: I think I am..
Tito: Don't be afraid of failure because everytime you fail you are also progressing. I have returned many items that I could not fix, even broken some even more. But from breaking the item I learn not to do it like that next time. The knowledge that comes from failure will accumulate and help you succeed. If people don't notice you, you need to go out and notice them. Ask them for a part time job. If they dont like you, they will tell you so. You just go and find another job, another victim. You need to find a victim in order to survive, just like Dracula.
Tito Manual loves putting me on the spot.
Tito Manual: Tell me a joke.
Me: Um... I dont know any..
Tito Manual: Any joke, anything you can think of
He sits back in his wheel chair, crosses his fingers and places his palms in his lap. He is waiting. Damnit! I scan my brain looking for jokes I find funny. I think of Aboriginal jokes.. ones demoting the Catholic church... PICK UP LINES! I hope the cultural/generation differences will not get in the way of this funny pick up line. I describe the context of the situation and lay down my pick up line:
Male goes up to girl and overs her his tshirt: Excuse me, what material do you think this is?
Girl, confused, touches the material: Um.. cotton?
Male: No. its BOYFRIEND MATERIAL!
hahahahhahaha. He didnt get it. I had to explain it to him. It made him smile. He didnt know what boyfriend material meant. He fact that I had taught him a new term amused him more than the humour in the joke.
non-sectarian
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