State of the Nation

Our country’s economy is floundering.

Sink or swim. We could only wait and see. No lifeguards to the rescue. All nations around the world are victims of the same shipwreck. And all are saving their own asses, desperate to get to shore.

Due to the almost-weekly increase in fuel prices and the consequent increase in the prices of all commodities, economizing has crept up in almost everyone’s vocabulary.

(an aside: the latest increase has given me heart palpitations! but then again, it must be the coffee).

Along this vein, it seems that extreme frugality, although long espoused by a handful of people I know,  along with skimpy clothing, has become the theme of the current lifestyle of more and more people across the country and the globe.

The following examples are some people’s attempts at beating the skyrocketing prices.

One lady saves shampoo costs by watering down an entire bottle of her favorite toiletry and making a 150-ml bottle last for three months. She estimates that she saves around 120 pesos by doing this.

A mother of three budgets her weekly ration of spices by dividing a regular-sized onion into seven sections, marked with a felt-tip pen. One section is for Monday, another is for Tuesday… well, you get the idea.

There’s a family, five people in all, who buys an entire kilo of dried salted fish. They go for around a month and a half on that ration, foregoing any fresh viand, except for the occasional pot of green leafy vegetables they may pluck from their tiny backyard garden.

A guy, in order to save on shampoo, soap, water, and electricity, bathes just every after three days. But he still consumes a larger volume of cologne compared with the time in the past when he still used to bathe regularly.

A letter sender, whose letter was published in a newsletter about frugality, says that he saves around a few dollars (the newletter is US-based) a month by using just one perforated section of toilet paper each time he does his business in the loo. (Ewwwwwww!)

Okay, I understand that these are desperate times and that people will resort to desperate measures in order to survive. But perhaps practicality still needs to be considered. Or is it just me thinking this way? Should it be that for the sake of survival and existence, nutrition, well-being, hygiene, personal comfort and security be sacrificed?

In any case, Tata and I will be house hunting today. We decided that for the time being, while the country’s economy is still undergoing a slump and the resolution level for this crisis is still as low as the Marianas Trench is deep (which means near forever), I’d rent a room near the office. Happy though I am to drive down the tropical jungle in any weather condition, doing it daily does not cut it anymore. We’ve calculated the costs and decided that a boarding house would be more feasible than spending for gas daily. We’d be able to save a couple of thousand a month (I hope) just by eliminating the fuel cost.

 

~Sigh.~

Sacrifices.

Meme Brigade: Q&A

Gracey, of jeffreyandgracey, tagged me for this.

Here are the rules:
1. Add your blog/s to the list. Feel free to add all your other blogs. It’s okay if you only post this question in one blog as long as you answer them.
2. Get back to YEN and will add your blogs to the master’s list here! Yup, another linking thingy but this one has 15 questions and you get to enjoy answering them too!
3. Tag as many friends online you know. But you don’t need to be tagged in order to join.

Now on to the heart of the tag:

The Questions

1. When you buy a greetings card, are the words or the picture more important to you? The picture tells the story.

2. What’s your favorite kind of cake? I have yet to taste the best mocca cake.

3. Do you ever make gifts for people, if so what, or do you buy them? Both. But expect something personalized when I have the time to make them.

4. What’s your favorite holiday? Yuletide. 12 days of Christmas. Yey!

5. Are you going on holiday this year? Erm, with the Shoe Factory tightening the noose on absences, and with the “privilege” of non-consecutive 5-day paid absence bestowed to regular elves, which includes the sick leaves and birthday leaves, I strongly doubt it. Still, if my Fairy Godmother is listening, a week in Camiguin Island would be very much welcome. 

6. What was the best party you’ve ever been to? A Christmas dinner in a S.C. justice’s (name witheld to protect identity) house, where the host got very drunk on his own red wine that he ended up donating 100K to charity on the spot. Free food and liquor the whole night. No orgies.

7. If you are married, describe your wedding. If not, what would your ideal wedding be like? I don’t know how to answer this one. But if push comes to shove, it would be in a garden just as the Sun breaks off from the clouds’ embraces. No long white train, please.

8. What’s the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to you? Valentine’s dinner by candlelight on top of a water tower. The main course was canned sardines and cold rice, sans silverware.

9. What’s your favorite girl’s name? Alexa.

10. What’s your favorite boy’s name? Matthias.

11. Which celebrity would you like a dream date with? Right now? Jake Gyllenhaal. Can this be accommodated in a week’s time?

12. Which female celebrity do you find beautiful? Nicole Kidman.

13. Which male celebrity do you think is attractive? See answer to question # 11.

14. What is your best character trait? I have harnessed the powers of the universe to help me learn to be happy in the moment. *Tee-hee*

15. What is your worst habit? Picking my nose in front of complete strangers (Joke!). Chronically disorganized in thoughts, words, and deeds.

 I’m passing this on to Lurchie, Ehn-ehn, and Nilroz.

THE LIST:
1. Me and Mine 2.Creative In Me 3.Little Peanut 4. Pea in a Pod 5. Sugar Magnolias 6. 6. A Life in Bloom 7. Because Life is a Blessing 8. Nita’s Random Thoughts 9. Nita’s Corner 10. Nita’s Ramblings 11. Thomas Web Links 12. Thomas Travel Tales 13. Great Finds and Deals 14. Make Money Online 15. Recipe Collections 16. My Wandering Thoughts 17. Filipino Online Community 18. Famous Lyrics Collections 19. Thomas Digital Services 20. Bohol Paradise 21. PRC Board Exam Results 22. My Paperless Writings 23. As The World Turns 24. My BIG Picture 25. When Silence Speaks 26. Felicity’s Vision 27. Bienvenue `a la Noryfel 28. Inday’s Kitchen 30. My Life 31. My Life in this Wonderful World! 32.Me,Myself+2 33.FunFierceFabulous 34. Supermodel Wannabe 35. kathycot dot com 36. buhaymisis.com 37. In Depth 38. My so called Life 39. Life’s Impression 40. Vhiel’s Corner 41. Anything and Everything in Between 42. Designs By Vhiel 43. Can of Thoughts 44. Artsy Creatures 45. Click Here To Forward 46. Filipino in Canada 47. Faery Dancing 48. My Safe Haven 49. Broken Coffee Cafe

Meme Brigade: What is Love?

[Be forewarned: Cloyingly emotic post follows.]

 

I could start by saying that it hits you when you are doing an entirely different thing. That it catches you unawares in the most mundane moment in a workaday grind or in the most purposeless walk you take down the lane of unguarded contemplation. But it could be that you are busy chasing rainbows or trying to reach that proverbial unreachable star. All the same, whether you are doing the former or the latter, you are unaware of Cupid’s arrow hurtling down at 350 mph from his cloud-covered boarding house in Olympus. And this shot is aimed at your thumping bumping ice-cold lonely heart (char!).

 

And then it hits! The impact may be felt or unfelt, depending on your emotional state; it may be as a deluge of emotions straining to be unleashed from the dam of your self control, blowing your mind completely into the galaxy of irrationality, or it could be like a tiny hopeful seed – slowly growing, taking roots, coming up to the surface, spreading its branches to the heavens, reaching upwards until love itself blossoms and bears fruit.

 

It is a force that makes mere fragile mortals, cowards in other circumstances, become courageous — they learn to speak out and defend their cause. It can fuel the fires of creativity and imagination. It makes men and women alike try to achieve the best that they can be as individuals that have the divine spark within. It graces life with light, mirth, and laughter.

 

On the other hand, this force also ignites wars between kingdoms. It causes hearts to break from being unrequited. It causes men and women alike to drink poison and hope for better environs of their union in the afterlife. It makes a man to forget his aging parents. It drives a woman to betray her sister. It is the bringer of tears, bloodshed, and strife.

 

But still, as all the greatest stories told by humans since they began to speak have love as their core message, Lurchie (who tagged me for this meme) has maybe felt the truth that stood the test of time:

Love, in all its forms, does make the world go round.

 

***********

 

And so, I hereby tag Master Joh (just this once because I am interested in what you have to say from a rooster’s perspective, hehehe) and Gracey of jeffreyandgracey.

 

The instructions are as follows:

 

 

*START COPY HERE*

1. Make a post with your answer to the question “What is Love?”

2. After the post, copy the complete instruction from *START COPY HERE* to *END COPY HERE* together with the pexlinks banner and place it under your post.

3. Please make sure you copy all the links and all must be originally intact.

4. After making the post, please comment HERE with the permalink of your post.

5. Please visit HERE every now and then to update your post with all the links of the participants.

6. Tag as many friends as you want. Share the love and receive love. We are hoping that spreading this will help us in our Technorati authority and maybe PR.

1 – Pexlinks Triple Love 2 – Pinay Mommy Online 3 – Momhood Moments 4 – Aerin’s Collection 5 – Deranged Insanity 6 – Anthology of Snippets 7 – Shenzee’s World 8 – Reflections by Mariz 9 – Miss Write 10 – Faery Dancing 11 – Chorva! 12 – Broken Coffee Cafe 13 – You’re next!

*END COPY HERE*