Goddess, I Am.

I’ve been trying to rack my very tired brain, thinking of something decent to write – anything from the life span of a tree frog, to Outer Banks rentals – but I’ve found out that one can’t be clever when one is sleep-deprived and cranky. So I’ve decided to write about the most mindless thing that I can possibly think of right now: this season’s American Idol.

This week saw Scott McIntyre finally given the boot. I’ve been saying it for weeks: he should have been eliminated early on because he was probably one of the show’s weakest contestants. Even so, I think it was probably the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever witnessed. After all, I am not such a heartless bitch to gloat over a blind guy’s elimination. And he did have his moments, mind you. I will forever remember him as the blind guy who Ryan Seacrest (futilely) tried to high-five.

Ryan Seacrest’s Defining Moment

Now, this is a bit late, considering that this year’s top 13 has been whittled down to 7 with the precision of an advancing Roman legion (sorry, I still can’t get the Roman stuff out of my system), but I am going to give my two cents’ worth on the rest of the contestants. All 13 of them (in no particular order). Because I feel like it. So deal with it.

1. Allison Iraheta.

She was definitely one of my early favorites. I can never forget her version of Alone by Heart, which, as we all know, got her past the top 36. She gave me goosebumps because she was that awesome. And to think she’s only 16.

I personally think she’s the only female contestant who actually has a shot (albeit a slim one, thanks to Adam Lambert) at winning AI this year.

2. Adam Lambert.

I do not doubt even for one second that he may actually will win AI this year. He’s overrated, yes, but he does have talent. As far as performers go, the guy is a genius. He has proven week after week that he can make any song his own. That includes his oh-so strange rendition of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire – a performance that actually left me, umm, very confused.

He also has tons of personality and quite a flair for dramatics. He is everything that an AI winner should be, which is slightly unfair to everyone else because he does have several years of theater training to back him up. I don’t necessarily love him – and he’s definitely not my favorite – but I do admire him plenty.

His performance of Mad World by Tears for Fears this week had me swooning over a gay guy, imagine. Simon Cowell even gave him a standing ovation. Really, they might as well end the whole show early and name him the winner because we all know that’s what they want to happen.

3. Michael Sarver.

So-so singer, so-so looks, so-so personality. I think the only mildly interesting thing about him is the fact that he works for an oil rig in Texas and he looks oh-so fatherly. I was rooting for him during eliminations because I completely admired his background and thought how cool it would be if a roughneck won AI. After that, I completely forgot about him, which was inevitable, considering the stellar talents of some of the other finalists. Apparently, so did America because he was the fourth person to get the boot.

4. Danny Gokey.

Also another guy I was rooting for during eliminations, but stopped liking now. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a great singer, and his voice is probably one of the best there is. The problem is he tries too hard, and from what I could read of his demeanor, I think he’s starting to think he’s hot stuff.

The judges, however, love him most of the time (this week’s performance was horrible, and they still liked it!). I think it’s this partiality that makes him Adam Lambert’s most serious threat. I still don’t like him. In fact, I hate him more every week.

5. Jorge Nuñez.

I personally think Jorge was eliminated too early. He was one of the two contestants given the boot in the first elimination round. I think the judges completely manipulated the rest of America to vote him out because his performance that night wasn’t as bad as, say, Anoop Desai’s (more on him in a bit). It was so-so, yes, but it wasn’t bad, and I personally think there were at least a couple of other contestants that deserved the elimination more than he did that night. It would’ve been nice to see more of what he could do.

6. Anoop Desai.

He is definitely my second least favorite contestant. I think he’s ugly, but he seems to be one of those guys who think they’re more good-looking than they really are. His voice is bland, and his performances are annoying. He’s like one of those Indians/Pakis who pretend to be black.

And that’s not the worse of it. He has a monobrow so thick that he probably has to shampoo it every morning. He should’ve been eliminated instead of Jorge that night because he definitely deserved it. I wish to God America will just stop voting for him. But then, considering the number of Indians spreading like flies all over the US (like they do everywhere else), I’m not surprised why he’s still there, week after week.

Still, I do hope next week will be his last. A girl can dream, right?

7. Alexis Grace.

This is another contestant that was wrongly eliminated because Anoop was still around. Although she never would’ve won, she was still quite good. She was also very pretty. Too bad her song choices didn’t do her justice. If she was just given a chance to stick around longer, she probably would’ve been great.

8. Megan Joy.

The other pretty blonde girl in the contest. I love, love, loved Megan. I was very surprised when she didn’t make it through the top 36 elimination because she did Corinne Bailey Rae’s Put Your Records On really, really well. Thankfully, the judges picked her in the Wild Card round.

Megan probably had the most unique voice in the contest. I loved the jazzy/bluesy thing that she had going on. Unfortunately, such a voice meant that there were very few songs that she could actually get away with.

Admittedly, her last two performances – and song choices – were pretty bad, but I personally think that the judges were pretty hell-bent on getting rid of her way before that. She was given pretty bad feedback for her version of Michael Jackson’s Rockin’ Robin early on when I think it was really, really quite good. And she knew it, too. She knew exactly that they wanted her out, so she pretty much threw the judges’ BS back in their faces as a last hurrah. The girl definitely had moxie.

9. Scott McIntyre.

He’s blind, so I think he got sympathy votes aplenty. To be fair to the guy, though, he can sing, play the piano AND guitar, and has a sense of humor. I’m still heartbroken for him. He probably needed this contest more than anyone else.

10. Lil Rounds.

She’s so . . . typical. She has one of those typical big-black-girl voices that gets quite tedious after awhile. And I’m not saying this meanly or anything, but, really, her ass is HUUUUGE! It’s astonishing.

Oh, and she seems to be choosing the wrong songs week after week, which, I believe, is really starting to annoy the judges, so she’s definitely not their golden girl anymore. Here’s hoping she goes soon. After Annoying Anoop, that is.

11. Matt Giraud.

Sometimes he’s good, sometimes he’s not. But really, I couldn’t care less about him.

Don’t get me wrong. He does sound awfully good, most of the time. It’s just that I think he’s trying too hard to be Justin Timberlake. They actually do kind of sound alike. He has the piano thing going on, and, if I remember correctly, the dancing is pretty similar, too. He also dresses like JT, hat and all. But probably the weirdest thing is they actually do kind of look alike. (Can anyone say, “copycat?”)

Of course, JT looks a hundred times better, naturally. I would say that Matt is the poor man’s version of Justin Timberlake – which really makes him about as special as my toe clippings. Oh, and he has abnormally huge thighs – a fact that was pointed out to me by my sister, of which I completely agree.

12. Jasmine Murray.

If Anoop is my second least favorite, Jasmine is definitely the one who gets the top spot. Why? Let’s see. She can’t sing. At all. She was forever trying to sing songs that were much too big for her, so I could not, for the life of me, understand why the judges picked her during the Wild Card round.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to endure much of her as she was eliminated right after the first round (along with Jorge). Ahhhh . . . American Idol still does make sense sometimes.

13. Kris Allen.

Naturally, I have saved my favorite contestant for last.

I’ll be the first person to admit that I’ve never noticed him before. When he won a slot in the top 13 over Megan, I was like, “huh?” I couldn’t even remember what he did to deserve that.

Once he was in the top 13, however, it was hard to look away from him. The man is insanely gorgeous in a boy-next-door kind of way. But his smile isn’t the only thing that is getting my heart atwitter, mind you. The man can really, really, REALLY sing (and play the guitar and the piano)! Seriously, he seems to be going from strength to strength each week, which means that he might actually be someone who can seriously challenge Adam, Danny, and Allison for the top spot. Admittedly, his last performance wasn’t up to his usual standards, but I’m sure he’ll do tons better next week and the weeks to come, all the way up to the finals.

Ah yes, I am definitely crushing on Kris Allen, especially after he sang Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine last week, much to The Fiance’s chagrin. I suppose it’s a good thing that he’s happily married, or else I might decide to marry him instead. (Just kidding, hon. You know you are the love of my life (and the pain in my ass). )

All in all, I’m glad shows like American Idol exist. It’s exactly the sort of mindless entertainment that I need to unwind and cheer up my cranky brain.

And speaking of which, I’m off to bed. But before that, I’ll leave you with some of my favorite performances (so far) this season:

Allison Iraheta’s Alone

Adam Lambert’s Mad World

Megan Joy’s Walkin’ After Midnight

Kris Allen’s Ain’t No Sunshine

How awesome is Cebu Pacific? In 2007, I booked a trip to Boracay in May (the trip that changed my life, but that’s another story for another day) for just a little over P2,000, round-trip. That same year, I bought a ticket to Hong Kong for about P3,000, also round-trip. I never got to use it, though, because I moved to Thailand and I had to travel through shitty Air Asia to Macau from Bangkok and take theTurbo Jet to Hong Kong. But hey, P3,000 is still not a bad figure to lose.

This year, they’re doing their fabulous seat sale again (only until the 24th, people!), and The Fiance and I booked tickets for 6 days in Boracay in June for just a little less than P3,000 for both of us. I’m so excited! It will be a pretty late honeymoon since we’re getting hitched in April, but, hey, at least I get to take my favorite man to my absolute favorite place this side of the world!

Maybe one day soon Cebu Pacific will start doing cheap-o flights out of Asia. Who knows? We might get the chance to go on one of those Orlando vacations soon-ish – not that America will be the first place I’d want to visit.

Aahhh… The joy of budget airlines and their overpriced cup noodles. Who could ask for anything more?

We’ve made some rather serious decisions over the past few days about the life that we’re going live together. Sure, living in the Philippines is easy, but truth be told, it’s almost impossible to make serious money around here. The same goes for the rest of Southeast Asia. So we’ve finally realized (or more accurately, agreed) that if we’re going to have a little nest egg to retire on in 20 years or so, we need to live in the West.

The easiest way would be to get married, of course. Then he can go back to the UK and find work, while I get the proper visas. With any luck, I’ll be in London in 6 months or less. But nothing ever sounds that easy (as if it would be easy to be away from him for months). For one thing, the world economy is in a bad state, so heaven only knows what sort of difficulties a returning British citizen might encounter back home. For another, The Fiance is completely averse to moving back to the UK anyway because Eastern Europeans who work for peanuts are taking the good jobs and all the benefits. We figured the UK would be a last resort.

Instead, we decided not to rely on just one place and weigh our options literally everywhere. Our best chance would be anywhere in the EU, and we’re leaning heavily towards the Netherlands (where my best friend, Kaye is). We also want to look into Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and maybe even the US (though I’m very skeptical about America, to be honest).

So it looks like we’re going to be busy, busy, busy within the next few weeks with assessments and point systems and what-have-yous. We’re also going to start working on the paperwork needed to get married (who knew there would be so many?!?!) so we can do it sometime in March. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the future, but I feel really good knowing that we’re doing something about it.

Wherever we go, I’m going to have to convince The Fiance to part with his gear for a while. It would be much too costly to ship everything out again – a hell of a lot more than the small fortune that we already paid to ship from Bangkok to Cebu. Maybe we can sell them all and just buy new stuff later when we’re more settled, or put everything in self storage – I don’t know yet.

One thing’s for certain: if we’re going to move, we have to be willing to leave a lot of things behind.

This post is long overdue (much like the first black president of America), but I’ve had so much on my plate the past few weeks that I just didn’t have time to blog. It’s inexcusable, however, considering this is one of the best things that has ever happened to my family. Ever.

On the 25th of November, my sister gave birth to a healthy and heartbreakingly (is there such a word?) beautiful baby boy after almost 15 hours of labor (and lots of people in medical scrubs being yelled at by, umm, her). He came out at 7 lbs., 3 oz. with a full head of hair and rather long limbs and my sister’s penchant for sleeping at all hours. In fact, he’d rather sleep instead of eat and cry – just like his mum. And his mum’s mum. And his mum’s sister, for that matter.

Everyone, meet Xabier Enrique Clamor-Vazquez.

He had nurses and student nurses fawning all over him the entire time he was in the hospital, much to his annoyance. Now he has his mum and dad, two grandmas (both refuse to be called such), his aunt (yours truly), uncle-slash-godfather (The Fiance), and sundry visitors taking turns to sniff him, also much to his obvious annoyance.

He’s definitely in danger of becoming a spoiled, little boy. But, hey, can you blame us?