All of a sudden, roachies are coming out from only God knows where! Not one, not two, but 20+ of them, one after another! Really creepy! I swear, it’s never happened before except for these past few months. Of course, they don’t come out like that everyday, it’s more of like a weekly occurance, specially when we’re doing the laundry. Like they’ve been disturbed from underground or something. We even brought the caretaker in and he moved the stuff around to see if there are holes somewhere, but we couldn’t find anything!

We do not only the attack from the roachie army, but the water in our kitchen, has a really dark reddish-brown color every morning and after letting it flow for sometime and it becomes clear again. And our water filter, has to be washed realllly often or it would end up looking really gross! Our faucet is being eaten up by rust and it had to be replaced at least every month. I bet even if we bought those posh Danze faucets they’d also end up crumbling like stale bread bahahaha!

I mean, sure if we live like total slobs and not clean our kitchen it would be understandable. But my in laws are really, really particular when it comes to cleanliness and all, so there’s no question of us breeding roachies and all that…Weirdnessss

Hmm…Life has been good to me…AND YA’LL SHOULD BE TOO…GIMME ‘EM BARFDAY GREETIN’ PICKIES NOW!…BAHAHAHAHA!

PS: Send it to mah email addy: fatimagodinez@gmail.com / timi@crimsonheavens.net …Kewl?

By right, all Catholics aged 14 and older are required to practice abstinence at least during Ash Wednesday and all Fridays of Lent, and also, all Catholics aged 18-59 are required to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday at the minimum. Abstinence means not eating meat (flesh of any warm-blooded animal) and Fasting means eating only one full meal a day (and two more meals if the quantity of both does not equal to one full meal, if really necessary).

To some Catholics, this is also the time of the year of which they “give up” something they really like to do as a sacrifice to God.

For Filipinos, singing of the “Pasyon” is an activity for the whole community. The Pasyon is a verse narrative on the life and sufferings of Jesus Christ, which is written in any major Filipino dialect. And then of course, there is the “Sinakulo”, a Lenten play, usually in verse which narrates episodes from the Old and New Testament. Also, for some specific provinces, other practices are also followed like the Marinduque’s Moriones, of which the locals reenacts the legend of Longinus, the Roman legionnaire who became a Christian, and of course the procession of the flagellants and crucifixion in Pampanga.

Personally, penitence by abstinence and fasting is one thing, but self-flagellation and crucifixion? Err…I think is just too gory….

I ain’t gonna elaborate.

Anyway, big thanks to all the people who expressed their concern about the problem I am having with my teeth. Teeth are not aching that much anymore, but I still have to take ‘em damn antibiotics for the infection. I feel bilious and weak…Ack! Disgusting!

In addition to that, hubby is sick. AGAIN. And if he’s got teh cold, I will get it too eventually. At times like these, I wish we have a maid, at least someone will take care of the house when we’re both “indisposed”. I mean, come on! Don’t ya’ll wanna be pampered when yar sick? Well, fine, at least we need someone to cook us something decent…But then again there’s just the two of us here at home. Personally, I don’t believe that we really need to hire a maid right now despite of the fact we’re both working. I think the problem is that we both do not have close relatives in Kuwait who can come and help us out.

As for work, well, everything is going on smoothly…hopefully it’ll stay that way. I’m learning lots of things and am getting paid for it…YEY! Although sometimes I feel that too many things to learn, and too little time for me. Sometimes I even wonder, what if I end up in a situation where I have to make a quick decision on something that I have no experience on? I mean, right now, people are already starting to ask me for my expert opinion and they expect me to have complete knowledge on what I am talking about. What if they need my expert opinion and well, I couldn’t give one?

‘Nuff of that. Thinking about it makes my head ache wahahahaha.

I am thinking of starting a “Tagalog” blog—or a “Tag-lish” blog for that matter—-for ranting purposes…WAHAHAHA! Let’s see…I don’t know…Prolly…Maybe?

Gah…I need to do something creative.

Dinner time, and we open our doors to these too little buggers who come and dash towards our bathroom where their dinner is served in two separate plates. They are the only ones allowed to enter our house, the rest we feed outside.

This is Anthony. We found him during the feast of St. Anthony when he was just a few days old crying his lungs out at the path behind our house.

Francesca is Anthony’s adopted elder sister. Actually, he started following her mom around and the two of them eventually took him in as part of the family. Baby (one of our regulars), Francesca’s mother, always leaves her young too early, so she too was left to fend for herself.

But both were too small and too weak to be able to survive and they ended up not being able to eat anything because the bigger cats always ate their share. They started getting sick because of this so we all decided to take them home and feed them in the bathroom (Lucy, our resident cat is quite territorial so we had to take them somewhere she wouldn’t go).

I’m usually in charge of making food for them but I have been sufferring from this irritating toothache that got my whole right cheek swelling like a ripe peach. Annoying. Actually, it’s my wisdom tooth. It’s been trying to come out for years now and I guess it is what they called “impacted wisdom tooth”…Grr…Problem is I can’t just trust any dentist here…I’ve heard stories about some of them not sterilizing their equiptments…EWWNESS…I hope we have some kind of a free 800 number to dial for, oh I dunno, reliable recommendation for medical clinics, doctors, dentists etc…Wahahaha! Okay, fine, don’t mind me…am just insane…and am terribly hurting…

We went to Eureka too and we saw that they were selling Wii consoles for 99KD (it costs 120KD in other electronic shops). Of course we didn’t buy one even though hubby told me that we could if I really want it (he actually prefers to buy an xbox 360 or ps3 if ever we’d buy another gaming console) but I said no. Even though I want it so bad, 99KD is still a lot of money and I told him I’d feel guilty.

We went straight to Kuwait City instead of home after Salmiya and went to Alghanim Electronics over there to drool on ‘em game consoles. Of course hubby was more interested in PDAs and he started bugging me about buying me a one (he wanted to buy me one for Christmas). And so we went home with this:

An HTC Touch Cruise. The bugger is actually happier than me…

Our team-leader and systems analyst had been promoted (sorta kinda) into a position of which he will only have to go to work for 2 hours everyday, and I was named as the person who would take over his position and of course, his responsibilities. For the last three weeks he was training me (but it was sort of like a hush-hush thing, dunno why the hell it had to be all that…). I was also in charge of seeing through the hiring of the new programmers who will work under me. My side of the department actually wanted someone that we had evaluated…not some idiot person that the HR will get for us and then later on would just be some big bullshitter talker…Of course, the Trade Test we devised took care of that (*evil laff*).

My new position as the Development Team Leader was announced on the 29th of December and I formally took charge on the first working day of this year, same day ‘em newbies were supposed to start workin’. There were instances that I did wanna give ‘em young-ins a few good smacks because of their selective amnesia (and christmas-lights-like common sense, blinky-blinky) with regards to given instructions, but then again, they are new and probably terrified of their short, sometimes-childish, but very WEIRD AND unpredictable supervisor.

I still have yet to have a formal conversation about the terms and conditions of my new job (i know it is weird, you get the job first before the seeing the proper contract)…sponsorship, term life insurance term health insurance, salary, bahhhh…it’s just so annoyingggg….

I celebrated my New Year’s Eve (day) and New Year’s Day in bed—knocked out, suffering from THE FLU. I was not able to leave the house at all for 4 friggin days (no work on the 31st, no church, no grocery shopping, no nothing!). THE FLU did not spare my husband…after taking care of me for two days, he also fell sick. We both don’t have fever now but we still sound like mad, uncontrollable Alsatians (WOOF! WOOF!).

My blog finally got a PR2! Yey to me! Moolah, moolah, moolaaahhhh….

Anyway, Happy New Year…Hope this will be a bright year for all of us.

2. Although I am late, I really wanna say: CONGRATULATIONS PACQUIAO for kickin’ teh Mexicano’s butt!

3. My husband had a 9-day holiday in total from 5th of December til the 13th (weekend holidays included) for Eid…Me? My boss thought it was cute to make us go to work on Sunday and Thursday last week since it’s not an official holiday anyway. We’re one of those few companies that were open that those days.

4. Hubby took me to Kuwait Scientific center and I fell inlove with a wild cat that happened to look like a brown, ungroomed, overgrown Persian! RAWR!

5. To make me feel less depressed (see item no. 1 for the reason…) hubby bought me a 350GB External HD and 2 PC game DVDs yesterday. He made food for the adopted streetcats and fed them all by himself last night (letting me play my Wii frustrations away all night long).

I’m still transferring my files from the old 40GB external drive to the new one.

6. Hubby is blaming his ponch to my cooking and he declared an all-veg diet for the both of us starting tomorrow.

7. I still want that Wii but I had accepted the fact that I won’t be getting it (until the price drops to, more than half it is now). Fairwell, my beloved Wii Fit!

Please just pray for me…

So how does Christmas in Kuwait go? Work. Attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Order something for dinner before sleeping. Wake up. Work. Go out for dinner. Very exciting.

Hopefully next year would be different. Spending Christmas this way for three years kinda sucks. And since we ain’t that rich to be planning for Orlando vacations just as yet (awesome theme parks + Christmas = amazing Christmas parades people!!!), we’re aiming of spending it in the Philippines…

Hubby’s been awfully nice to me these past few days…am su-huch a spoiled brat. Didn’t feel like going anywhere so I convinced hubby to just stay home all weekend. Enjoyed a lot of weekend cuddles…Just love ‘em…I think I can just live on that…

I’ve had a lot of those “DUH! Can-I-boink-meself-on-me-head-now?” moments.  Actually, it’s been happening quite often lately and I really would want to know why. I had noticed that aside from when working on my programs, my level of concentration is quite low…I forget to do simple things, like washing the bowl I thawed the chicken on, putting the ice cream in the fridge as soon as we get home from shopping, things like that…And I feel that it is getting worse every day…

I wonder what is happening to me…

Right now, they’re building this 100-floor giant just a few blocks away from our place. There will be a posh mall, posh movie theatres, rooftop garden and posh offices also on the upper floors…hmmm, interesting…makes me think how they’ll be able to pull it off. Actually in my area, there are probably about more or less 7 construction sites of supposedly high-rise buildings…they had finished constructing a whole bunch of them in the city, three of which has digital signage installed.

Just imagine, Kuwait is a very small country with approximately 3 to 3.5 million population of which, only nearly a third of it are Kuwaiti nationals. Only Kuwaiti nationals are allowed to open businesses and approximately 50% of them are of that age where they can own one and still not all of them do. So what are all those buildings for? I don’t know, but I guess they are planning something big for the country that’s why they’re giving it a HUGE MAKE-OVER.

I mean really, they’ve brought down a lot of old buildings and new ones are popping out left and right. The designs are more of on the modernist styles, with a lot of ‘em blue glass windows, usually having minimum of 20 floors (not sure).

I wonder how the city would look like 4 years from now….

Anyway, it started raining here in Kuwait, which only means one thing…winter will come in a few days. I like rainy days…They remind me of Philippines, actually. And, it is at these times that it is best to rummage through some old things, reminisce, have warm buttered toast and coffee and cuddle with the loved one…But then of course I won’t be able to do all those except during weekends (BOO!).

As for winter, well I hate it as much as I hate summer over here. No snow…just strong gusts of icy cold wind…and me in my usual penguin look (I’m short okay? So wearing layered winter clothes makes me look like a penguin). NOT NICE! (Which actually makes me seriously think about this Hydroxycut-thingie…). Work load also tends to really reach up to my neck during winter. Why? Because summer AND Ramadan are over, those company employees/employers are catching up with the piled up work they just ignored during those two seasons and it means more project approvals for our company.

Well, it is a good thing that the ITP-K web-design course is over, I’ll get my slow Saturday morning back. Not that I hated it, it really does feel nice in the end when you know your helping people and they are very grateful of teaching ‘em stuff. It was their project presentation + “mini-graduation ceremony” yesterday and I’m really proud of them. I mean, they really did well considering that they NEVER knew how to create websites before the course…All they really need now is practice! So… CONGRATULATIONS ITP-K WEBDESIGN CLASS 2008! (I am still waiting for the newspaper article to come out…har har har!)

Anyway, Mr. Potporotpotpot (ok fine, just Potpot) had posted a series of questions on a “plurk” thread that he had started related to one of the most-used, sensitive, and in-a-way quite complicated four-letter-word called LOVE. It reminded me about a discussion between one person and myself about the ugly side of romantic love and the things that she told me which was, somewhat true.

Love is a strong emotion, and I believe that sometimes, a person really cannot help falling in love, no matter how complicated their circumstances are and despite of what society dictates or considers as right or wrong. Take for example having an affair with another man or women when one is already married, (Keep to mind, I am talking about real deep emotional involvement here, and not those cases where people are just simply thinking with their lower-body-parts.), or falling in love with a cousin, or those who fall in love to a person way below their social standing, or falling in love with someone you have not met, even falling in love with someone who is emotionally unstable. Most of the time, such scenarios result to hearts being broken not only of the persons involved, but also others who are close to them.

In a situation like this, probably at first, one would not care whether it is wrong or right. As long as your love is being returned, to hell with the rest of the world, right? But eventually the world will force itself on you, whether you like it or not. That is the time when you start wanting, even demanding, things from each other that neither of you can give, you have to start struggling, you have to start fighting for it, you will have to hurt other people who do care for you, you have to start making choices, choices that would eventually have a huge impact to everybody close to you…That is the time when you have to think…Is that love really worth it?

And when you do answer that question, you know that you already had lost something big. Something that had always been a part of you that you just had to give up and you probably not be able to have again for the rest of your life…It can be your parent’s trust…It can be your children’s love….It can be respect that you worked so hard to earn…

Probably falling in love is something someone just could not help. But it takes one to make a decision to take that step…to act out their feelings…to take that plunge that would probably drown you later on.

Hubby, as usual, accompanied me and he took a lot of pictures. Actually he’s been taking a whole lot of pictures lately but he had no time to get them printed out. We’ll probably buy an all-in-one printer so we can print the pictures he had taken and will be taking later on. Right now, we have to focus on saving for our much-awaited vacation.

Anyway, all went fine, but ’til now I feel very sleepy and I cannot concentrate. I have to upload the pics and some of the websites that our attendees did…Gah! I’m really lazy. Plus today I rushed on finishing the integration between an old client’s website with the old CMS we were using (coz they told me that they are not going to transfer to a new one) and after I’ve done the whole thing, our boss told me to scrap the one I made and integrate the site to the new CMS…WTF! I worked one friggin week for that shit! Talk about major pain…

I was (and always is by the way), a lover of fairy-tales. My favorite had always been Cinderella, and other similar stories with a “riches to rags and then back to riches” theme. Of course, they usually involve the handsome Prince Charming who comes and saves the mistreated beauty from her awful predicament.

Gothic romance added to my lot of favorite reads, particularly those written by Victoria Holt. Almost similar, but not quite. The handsome Prince Charming had become the head of a distinguished Cornish family, and the patient, almost-meek and mistreated heroine, had become a lady with noble breeding, or a governess, strong-willed and unyielding to the shadows and dark secrets of the manor.

The “Prince Charming + Happily Ever After” concept, which was the major ingredient of the popular anime Sailormoon, had brought me closer to the world of Japanese animation and manga. I started writing stories then too, and the concept carried through almost all of my fictional works. It was then that I realized that wasn’t really the character of the “Prince Charming” that captivated me all these years, it was the “The Savior, Protector and Avenger” and the “Happily Ever After” part was actually just the preferred ending of love developed between two people, living in almost different worlds, through a meeting set up by chance, or for some people, Fate.

I mean, what are the chances of a member of royalty really inviting all the ladies of the land to his birthday ball? And yet it still happened. And Cinderella, despite of having a difficult life, was able to go and both were able to meet. And then, Prince Charming became her savior, her protector and her avenger…punishing all that had done her wrong.

Back then, I may have not seen myself as a “Cinderella”. However, through my grandmama and grandpapa, I had witnessed the possibility of true love between two people who probably would never had thought that there will be a chance for them to meet at all. He was a son of one of the land-owning families in Leyte, and she, lived all her life in Manila and whose family was so poor (according to her) that she walked barefoot to school. But they did meet, fell inlove and got married. She became the heroine and he became, not only her Prince Charming but her Sworn Protector as well of their own fairy tale—they had their own “happily ever after” ending.

I will not tell how exactly I had met my husband, but we can both assure you that our roads would never had crossed if not because of Chance or Fate or any Divine intervention. We did not meet in Kuwait, I came here to be with him and what actually transpired before that was a series of impossibilities that was made possible. But whether it was Fate or Chance or Divine intervention…For me, I had found my Prince Charming and we are living our own fairy tale…hoping for a “Happily-Ever-After” ending.