Goddess, I Am.

If you know me, you know that I’ve had a boner for vampires for as long as I can remember. (Said boner can put natural male enhancement to shame, which is saying a lot, considering I don’t even have a penis.) And because it’s almost Halloween and all, I figured I’d pay tribute to my favorite undead by sharing my five favorite male vampires of all time. (That, and I’ve got absolutely nothing to write about, tee hee.)

Number 5 – Sparkling and the name ‘Reneesme’ notwithstanding, I really do like the Twilight series. But no, you’re not going to find that Drama Queen Edward Cullen on this list. However, Jasper Hale is.

Why? Because he’s a bad-ass civil war hero with some mad fighting skills. Never mind that he looks constipated most of the time. At least, he doesn’t act like a freakin’ twink. And he is pretty cute.

Number 4 – Bill Compton. Honestly, who doesn’t love True Blood? But we all know the series won’t be half as good without Bill’s throaty, “Sookie. . .”

And that stare . . . Gaaahhhhhh!

On a side note, I was so happy when Stephen Moyer and Anna Paquin got married. It’s not hard to imagine these two having a sex life as awesome as Bill and Sookie’s. It’s all in the chemistry, folks!

Number 3 – I can’t decide who I like playing him more – Tom Cruise, or Stuart Townsend. Either way, there’s no way Lestat de Lioncourt will not be on this list.

Lestat is the perfect vampire – both cold and passionate with a sense of humor. He’s also very much misunderstood, which makes it almost impossible not to love him.

Number 2 – He’s Roman and a vampire. What’s not to love about Marius de Romanus? He’s an old one, which is why I love him so. I like my vampires really old, like thousands-of-years old. They’re more awe-inspiring that way.

I was very disappointed that they changed his looks in the movie Queen of the Damned, so there’s no picture of him worth posting. But then, that movie was fairly screwed up from start to finish, anyway, so I guess making the blonde, fair Marius into a dark one made sense.

I would say Marius has the most fantastic history of all the vampires I’ve ever read about, which is why, until recently, he was my favorite vampire. Why the drop to number two? Blame . . .

Number 1 – Eric Northman. I swear, I go into spasms every time he’s in a scene on True Blood. The fact that he’s played by the extremely delish Alexander Skarsgård helps – or doesn’t, depending on how you look at it.

Apart from his sheer good looks, Eric is everything a vampire should be. He’s a little over a thousand years old, was a Viking king, and he can fly. I so want to be Sookie Stackhouse just so I’ll have Eric Northman crushing on me. Bill Compton can go fry in the sun, for all I care, tee hee.

Vampires are awesome, aren’t they? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find the perfect vampire-bait costume for Halloween.

I honestly don’t know anyone who can multi-task better than me. Not that I have any choice in the matter, what with deadlines that never seem to want to get caught, a family that always seems to be doing something or another together, and a husband who refuses to get cheated out of quality time with his wife. Still, I cope very well under the circumstances, probably because I hate being idle and I actually enjoy working my bum off, believe it or not.

The past week alone, however, has seen my coping mechanism take a beating when we decided to showcase and market my sister’s swimwear and clothing line in the IT Park Christmas Nights Bazaar. With my mum about to take the nursing board exam (which ended yesterday), who else gets to mind the shop with my sister but me?

The bazaar is open from 4PM to 12MN. This means hours and hours spent dealing with the most fickle shoppers this side of the equator, hours and hours away from my work, and hours and hours not spent with a very cranky husband.

But really, I wouldn’t be The Queen of Multi-Tasking for nothing. I’ve been taking Octavian with me every day – with a fully loaded Smart Bro prepaid dongle to boot! – so I can surreptitiously run my posting/bookmarking/RSS aggregator software in between dealing with women who haggle with a zeal that borders between ruthlessness and downright mania. Yes, I’m working while I’m “working”, and if I wasn’t having so much fun dealing with people face to face for a change, I wouldn’t be doing it.

Thank heavens, though, that we only signed up for 2 weeks (we’re open only until December 10), and not through the entire month that the bazaar runs for (it’s on until December 23). Fun or not, I will be quite happy when this bizarre bazaar business is over and I can go back to my usual routine. But what I really look forward to most is the chance to spend time having my muscles kneaded into blissful oblivion with the spa filter gurgling soothingly in the background to lull me to sleep.

Yep, the 10th of December can’t come enough! But for now, come see Innuendo Fashion at the Christmas Nights Bazaar in Asiatown IT Park for gorgeous swimsuits, lovely dresses, and oh-so cute sleepwear. You can even get your swimsuits custom made, too, for extremely (and I mean really) reasonable prices. (FYI, the only other “company” we know of that offers such a service in Cebu charges ridiculous prices.)

Or, you can just come over for a chat with yours truly. I don’t bite. And I give discounts.

My new job has me helping kids write their college application essays for US universities (yes, no local medical assistant training schools for these fellas!). These are rich kids with hefty trust funds, yes, but they’re also kids who want to make something out of their lives. It’s fun helping them write their essays because their lives are so incredibly colorful and interesting. Most of them are still about to start their senior year in high school, but they’ve already accomplished so many things that most adults will never be able to achieve in their lifetimes. It made me think about myself in high school and what I was up to, which was pretty much no good. Here’s how my college essays would’ve looked like if I had the same opportunities as they do.

Intellectual Interests Essay:

I like to think of myself as a student of the world, not of the classroom. Because of this self-styled belief, learning in school has never been my ‘thing’. I was too busy trying to stay awake to make heads and tails of the Pythagorean Theorem, or how Magellan got his ass kicked in Mactan. But that is not to say that I didn’t learn anything in high school. Au contraire. If anything, I learned things that were far more valuable than mathematical formulas, or the life of Jose Rizal.

Probably the most important lesson I learned was that I didn’t necessarily need to listen in class to pass my exams. Instead, I just needed to read through my textbooks’ table of contents at the very last minute. This technique was so effective, in fact, that I was always the first to submit my test paper for checking. I never got perfect scores, but I never failed either. Sometimes, however, there are isolated cases wherein such a technique is ineffective. In these cases, I found that a teeny-tiny piece of paper and a very fine pencil will come in handy. Of course, it helps to have 20/20 vision.

During my junior year, I went through a phase of enthusiasm for my classes; two, in particular. I loved chemistry class and the incredibly complex experiments that it demanded. These were so complicated, in fact, that me and my friends spent the whole time huddled around a Bunsen burner, having intelligent discussions on the latest news from the Backstreet Boys or Hanson. I also started looking forward to mid-morning Social Studies when the teacher would lock the door and let us do our thing. He had a hernia, you see, and therefore had more important things in his mind than teaching disinterested teenagers the Law of Supply and Demand. That year, I learned the economic differences of having three players in a game of tong-its (a card game) instead of two.

Lastly, I learned that laughing at my English teacher for mispronouncing words was a very good way to get myself sent to the principal’s office, which was almost always empty. I also learned that serving Chinese takeaway in my Home Economics cookfest was likely to give me a reputation of being a very fine cook. Most of all, I learned that I couldn’t reach my toes in Phys.Ed – and I never will.

Describe an experience that shaped you as a person.

During my freshman year, I was chosen to be one of the two representatives of my class for the Miss United Nations ’95 beauty pageant. I won first runner-up – quite a mean feat for someone so young. The Miss UN and I then represented the high school department for the university-wide pageant. I didn’t win. I did, however, catch the audience’s attention after I almost burned another candidate’s traditional Filipino headdress with the traditional Filipino candles that were part of my traditional Filipino ensemble. I was also the youngest contestant to have ever joined that pageant, and I developed a campus queen complex.

A few months later, my class staged a fashion show for our Home Economics class, a very well-attended event. I was the star of the show, appearing in the bridal finale as the bride “marrying” one of my classmates who was transformed from a pimpled adolescent to an over-foundationed groom. I was confident that I would win the “Best Model” award. Much to my surprise and chagrin, however, the award was given to one of my classmates. I had barely left the stage when I started getting hysterical. I was the Miss UN first runner-up and I represented my department in the school-wide pageant, so I should have won Best Model, too!

I was humiliated and inconsolable for days. I only realized later that I humiliated myself even more by reacting that way. I realized that I was a sore loser, and this has shaped me into the person that I am today. I’ve learned that I shouldn’t let my ego get ahead of myself. I’ve learned that I should at least appear to be modest – even when I’m not. Most importantly, I’ve learned never to join a beauty pageant ever again. Of course, it helps that I haven’t grown an inch since.

How can you contribute to the institution’s diversity? Describe a situation where this contribution was applied.

My high school department was tiny; so small, in fact, that we only had one class for each of the four levels. I was my class’ designated songbird. Whenever there was a singing contest, I took center stage. I wasn’t particularly good, but there was no one else courageous enough to volunteer in my stead, so I had to do it.

Without fail, I always placed third out of four contestants – which pretty much meant that I was the second worst singer of the bunch. That was fine, though, because at least I wasn’t the absolute worst. Besides, they gave prizes until third place, so in my four years of high school, I accumulated a healthy collection of staplers and Stabilo Boss highlighters.

My singing days ended soon after when my voice broke for no apparent reason. I now sing in screeches and wails. I could still very much carry a tune, however, and with rather shocking accuracy. Suffice to say, I am one of the best bad singers I know, and I could definitely contribute to the university’s diversity this way. After all, there can only be too many good singers, and even more bad ones. By being a good bad singer, I’m offering your good institution the best of both worlds.

Ahhh, yes. Definitely Harvard or at least Princeton material…if I do say so myself.