Mommy Growing up: drama
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Shotgun Proposal

Married? Tell us the story of how the question was popped.

Wooh! Such meme from Mama Kat suddenly transported me back ten years ago at my engagement moment. So how was the question popped? Sorry to frustrate you guys but our story was not that romantic. For starters, I'm not even sure if the question was popped at all. I think it's kinda funny. The question should be, was the question popped? Hahah, please read on.

I was on my sixth year with my veterinary medicine course when I found out I was two months pregnant. Yes, two months pregnant at the beginning of my senior year. How great was that. Pregnancies out of wedlock are frowned upon by our society. Our parents and families would surely be devastated. I was beyond horrified. Confused and scared, I informed my boyfriend of my scary condition. His answer was simple "then let's get married!" That was a declaration! He didn't even pop the question. He didn't even asked me if I wonna marry him. It's the feeling of having a shotgun pointed at your face and you have no other option but to accept the proposal.

See? Told yah, not at all romantic.

With his statement, the more I got scared. I'm not yet ready. I love him but we're still kids ourselves. However, my soon-to-be-hubby was sure of his decision. He was to marry me if that's the right thing to do. He's kind of mature beyond his years. Our friends used to tease him that such was his strategy of not losing me, hmmm.

But hear me out. The problem then was how to divulge such news to our parents. A role model daughter as I was, I was scared to break the forbidding news. So I left the noble task to my poor hubby. For three days I was gone for a field trip on an island with my colleagues, an overnight ferry ride away from home. He was left to resolve our grave problem alone (he's the sweetest and obviously I'm the meanest haha). When he told his parents about  our serious problem, surprisingly, they took the news calmly and understood our situation.

Then they visited my parents and dropped the bomb themselves. Imagine how my mom reacted. She was hysterical. My father was speechless. I can't imagine how awkward the situation might be. It's their first time to meet each other and what a great way to finally meet, huh? However, my parents managed to survive the blow. They believed that everything will be alright. That their daughter will surely finish her studies and become a veterinarian someday. That we will survive such sudden transition in our lives. Knowing what everybody had gone through (and I was a coward), I was really touched and kind of felt at peace with the situation and less scared of getting married too soon.


In our Filipino culture, we have the stage before marriage called "pamanhikan", where the groom-to-be formally asks the hands of his wife-to-be from her parents for marriage. My boyfriend's family and relatives invaded our home few days later and the wedding date was set. Hence, we were officially engaged. I was then 21 and hubby was 22 years old. The wedding was held two months later in our city's cathedral  followed by a grand reception at the hotel. And the feeling? I was like floating all through out in the midst of a whirlwind, from the wedding preparations to the wedding ceremony. I survived.

Overall, though the marriage proposal was not at all that romantic, we ended up so inlove with each other. We made the right choice. And now, we got two beautiful daughters who further strengthened the bond. Though our relationship has its ups and downs, we worked it out and maintained the romance in our lives. Last month, we celebrated our tenth year wedding anniversary. Yes we did it and pretty survived the odds. As for the romantic part? I'm still waiting for my diamond ring, wondering when my husband can finally afford it lol.

This post was inspired by the fabulous Mama Kat's meme.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Wished that I vanished

Known in my family as the clumsy queen, I'm always been an accident-prone walking creature oftentimes ended up wishing to simply disappear from the face of the earth just to save my sorry ass from public humiliation.


photo from google
Talking about wishing to simply vanish into thin air, I once wished the first time I experienced this dreadful stage fright moment. Fourteen years back, on my third year college, I was convinced to join our college debating team. An  inter-college debate was about to happen in our university and they needed a team to represent our college. Based on my past high school experiences, I knew I kind of sucked on class debates. But just to help out my college, I blindly accepted the challenge. Little did I know, I had this awful "disease" known as stage fright.


We practiced everyday and did pretty good research on our subject. Time came for the judgement day. Dressed on our pearly white college uniforms and pinned with our shining college badges, we walked in the conference hall with a dramatic entrance. Why dramatic? We were a bit late. Everybody was already settled in their seats except for us, the moment we came in, all heads turned. Yes, embarrassing yet dramatic. My then avid suitor (now my husband), who belonged to the opponent team's college, was never been proud to see me get into the room and cheered for us (hmmm, at least that was what he told me).


Onstage, each team breezed for our opening speeches. But then, when the points of information were thrown to us by the opposing team (and they were good), my brain suddenly shut down. I became so nervous, my palms sweated, my face and ears got hotter and I could feel my body trembled. I never felt so terrified. I felt nauseous. I could not focus on the question. What did he say again? I felt stupid standing behind the podium with a microphone on hand. Wished the show would end at that instant. Wished I would wake up from such a  terrible nightmare.


Then my mind, instead of thinking for smart answers to throw back was just secretly regretting about joining the contest. I should not have joined the debate in the first place. I should have studied even harder for the competition. Never did I thought being on stage will be this overwhelming ~ with the expectant audience, the seriousness of the competition, the fact that it was my first time to join a real debate, and that I was some lousy public speaker and a pretty bad debater.

Then I realized our team was losing. Our rebuttal was equally bad. I never felt so embarrassed my whole single life and in that instant, I wished the floor would open up wide and swallow me whole.


Yes, such was those onslaught of dreadful stage fright. Wished I could glamour everybody (like the vampire Bill Compton) to erase their memories of my humiliation lol. I knew I would be smarter the next time ~ that means never to join such competitions ever again lol. It's just way out of my league or I'm just too ambitious for it. If it's  unavoidable to speak in front of a huge crowd, then I should be well-prepared and well-equipped to go on to battle, armed with my powerful ammunition ready for the kill. Cheers!

This post was inspired by fabulous Mama Kat, where I will write about a time I wanted to disappear. If you want to join this meme, link up every Thursday.



Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Can't help disappointing myself





In response to Mama Kat's fabulous weekly prompts, I was inspired to write something about the times I disappointed myself. Ahhh about this topic, I have a lot to say  ~ since I'm always been disappointed on "me".  I just can't help it.  I am not a perfectionist but I always disappoint myself for being so imperfect (oops please be warned that I am weird, sometimes).

http://t1.gstatic.com/images
I disappoint myself for always been so disappointing ~ for always being late and for being an avid procrastinator, for being so clumsy, stubborn, impatient, irritable, tactless, immature, insecure, selfish, lazy, rebellious, paranoid, and simply for doing something stupid (oh please help me stop the list).

I disappointed myself today at my 5-year old daughter's first day of kindergarten class. I realized I failed as a perfect mom for her. Interacting in a community filled with competitive parents, I realized my daughter is academically falling behind from her peers. It's really my fault. I should have done better. I should have properly tutored my child this whole summer vacation instead of spending too much time watching movies or ogling on Facebook lol. I should have been a better mom *sigh*! Oh  come on, she's still a 5-year old kid, what's wrong with me? To hell with these competitive people lol. On a lighter note, we really had fun this summer.


Exactly ten years ago when I accidentally (lol) got pregnant, I disappointed myself for failing my dreams and for failing my family's dreams for me. Well, at least that was just temporary. I survived. I resolved to move on and catch on with my dreams~ together with my loving hubby and kids. Isn't that great!

When I was heavily pregnant with my first daughter, I disappointed myself for not controlling my diet hence I ended up like an overstuffed elephant. I really looked terrible and inherited a continent of cellulite! I learned my lesson the hard way (as always) thus I was very careful with my second pregnancy. 

When I delivered my first baby, again I disappointed myself for having an impromptu CS operation, the reason ~ too big baby, again because of stubborn me eating too much sweets at my last trimester (again a lesson learned).

And the list goes on and on. I'm afraid I will never have enough space for all of them.
 
Overall, how ever disappointed I may be with myself, I learned from all of my experiences. I took such disappointing situations as challenges to conquer. Though I'm imperfect, what I loved about myself is my will to look at the brighter side of anything. From there, I try to move on and sometimes just letting go...

Thanks Mama Kat for getting the drama queen out of me. I enjoyed this awesome event. Moving on to read what others wrote about your prompts  :)

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The lazy student in me

After a year of rest from my studies, I'm geared to go back this coming semester. My kids are already settled. Their classes will start by next week, 3rd grade and kindergarten for my 9 and 5 year old daughters, respectively. On the other hand, the new semester for my graduate studies (PhD 2nd year, Veterinary Medicine) will start by next month. But still here I am, unable to work. :-(

I need to go to my office/laboratory or to the library to gather literatures for my experiments. I badly needed to finalize my research designs. My husband's schedule to work in his lab is in daytime so I couldn't do it in daytime.  I can't fully work at home either since home means the absence of online journal subscriptions, which are only available in the university. This means I need to work in the campus. Since I can't leave my kids at home (no way) or bring them to the library, my schedule hence allows me to work only at night time, (best) right after early dinner when my husband arrives home until early dawn. A good friend of mine is willing to keep me company at night time in her cozy study office. However, I just can't work at night time either. For two weeks now I've been lagging behind from my program. Why? I just can't bear to leave my kids at home (with their dad), knowing that they can't sleep without me by their sides (*sly grin*). All right guilty. I know this is just an excuse (yet true, wink*). The truth is, I am enjoying home, being lazy, with my kids ~ this is life. But how can anyone blame me? I'm still enjoying the vacation. Come on it's still summer vacation, gimme a break, lol. Being a WAHM (part-time researcher for my professor) for a year, believe me it's not that easy to get back out there. I know, I need to toughen up. I just need more determination, more discipline and a good time management. But I never thought it could be this hard. Oh I need my mom, I am so weak, so lazy...
but I will try my best to overcome this before the vacation ends! I promise!

Friday, August 19, 2011

A Mom’s dilemma


My decision of having my kids over to live with us oftentimes leaves me pondering, was this the right decision?

I and my husband went abroad to pursue our graduate students. We survive mainly on our respective scholarship stipends after quitting our respective jobs back home. Our part-time jobs as research assistant help too. As graduate students, we need all the time and effort to finish as soon as possible. So it is just rational enough that we shouldn't be bringing our kids over. On the other hand, I couldn't completely focus on my studies. I couldn’t help thinking about my poor little kids being left behind. Sure their grandparents took good care of them, but don’t they deserve their parents?

Then again I thought about the perks of not having kids over. When I came here alone four years ago, the absence of my husband and kids made me play around with my schedules – working at night till dawn with my experiments or having late night outs with friends without thinking of a child waiting for bedtime stories. However, I still longed for their company. When my experiments failed or beat deadlines, I wished my husband was here to comfort me. When I felt depressed and thought of giving up, wished my kids were here to kiss and embrace all my anxieties away.  I never felt so alone in the midst of the bustling city and beer drinking friends. The laughter, the yelling, the tantrums my kids had thrown - I missed it all.

When my husband decided to join me a year later in pursuit of his own PhD studies, I felt so happy. Life was good. Somehow, years of living apart had strengthened our marriage. Indeed we enjoyed our second honeymoon. When I finished my masters studies and got accepted for a PhD program, then I realized that both of us will be missing 5 or more years of our kids’ lives. No way! Missing my younger daughter’s first steps and first words were sad and terrible enough. I don’t wanna miss anymore of their birthdays, Christmas seasons or their everyday growth! No way, enough is enough. Then, I made a big decision. I will bring my kids over no matter what. My husband and parents-in-law were very apprehensive of the idea. Debates were thrown but in the end I won (*grin*).

Indeed God is good. He makes all things possible. Things worked out as planned. Our kids finally joined us here. We’re making up for the lost years we missed. Now I could enjoy all their kisses and embraces to my heart’s content. Now I can be a real mother. Life is never been better. Every day is a blessing. Together we will journey this life. Sure there will be hardships we meet along the way. But that’s what makes life more interesting and challenging. I learned to be grateful in little things that I took for granted for years. Indeed life is full of surprises and we live to enjoy them.

As for my dilemma on whether I made the right decision or not, well, let’s forget about it lol. More than ever, I am resolved  that I made the right decision.
I would not enjoy such a bliss had I chosen to leave my babies behind.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Working 10 hours a day!



New semester is coming!

I'm up for new strategies, be a new Mommy Kate - more disciplined, more focused, and hopefully smarter.  

I would start fulfilling these new goals by doing a simple task – and that is to work at least 10 hours a day. Question is: how in the world would I manage this?

My proposed schedule then:

6 – 7 AM – prepare breakfast; breakfast for me and my kids
7:15 – 7:30 – send Joey to school
7:30 – 8:15 – prepare me and Aron for school
8:20 – send Aron to school and me off to my college
8:30 – 4 PM – Laboratory/ school/ classes/ experiment (that’s 7.5 h)
4:15 – fetch kids from school
5 – 8:30 – prepare dinner, dinner, laundry, household chores, let kids study and do their homework, let Neil tutor kids their homework
9:30 – let kids sleep
8:30 – 11 – study for my own stuff (that’s 2.5 h)
11 PM – 6 AM – sleep (7 h)

Hmmm, this schedule may not be bad.  It’s quite interesting and way far challenging. Let’s see if Lazy Kate can handle this. So working 10 hours a day is not after all impossible to achieve (?). If I would just stick to my program, devote a little bit of hard work and practice a scary heap of discipline, I might accomplish my goals in no time… 
Aaahhh!!! I don't know! Hopefully…