100 things about me.

Apparently, all REAL bloggers are supposed to do this 100 Things thing.

Geebus! How was I supposed to know?!

It wasn't in the Handbook of Real Blogging Online on the Internet, which someone (not me) should really write one of these days. And they didn't mention it during the Bloggers' Initiation. You think they'd at least mention it between the paddlings and panty raids. But no, not a peep. Jerks.

Anyway, I've been working on this for the past 2 days hours, and now it's ready. It may not blast me into the stratosphere as an alpha blogger, but it may just stop all the stalkers my dear readers from harassing me with "Where is your 100 Things post?" emails.

So, here it is. Now, don't tell me I don't do anything for you... xo


1: I'm a Scorpio and a Yin Earth Rooster.

2: My birthstone is Topaz, but I've always wished it was Ruby.

3: I was born via emergency C-section, 2 weeks overdue and they kept losing my heartbeat.

4: I'm the 1st grandchild on my father's side, and the 4th on my mother's side.

5: I have no biological brothers or sisters... that I know of.

6: When I was 2, my grandmother gave me a chicken for a pet. It died when I gave it a bath and left it out in the hot sun to dry.  No, we didn't eat it.  Gross.

7: My parents and I moved to Canada four days before my 4th birthday.

8: After all these years in Canada speaking almost only English, I am still able to speak Tagalog.

9: My nickname growing up in the Philippines was "Candy", because my neighbourhood friends thought the reason I was so fat was because I'd eaten lots of candy.  Of course, I thought it was just lovely and insisted my family call me that too.

10: I have decided that Candy will be my stripper name -- you know, just like Clark Kent's stripper name is Superman... oh no, wait...

11: I introduce myself as Nenette nowadays.  Some family and old special friends still call me Candy, and I'm okay with that.

12: I know how to play the organ, piano, and bass guitar.

13: I also know Tae Kwon Do and Sikaran-Arnis.

14: At one point in my adolescence, my parents had enrolled me in organ lessons, piano lessons, swimming classes, figure-skating classes, tae kwon do classes, and hula dance classes all at the same freakin' time.  The only night I had free was Sunday.


15: All those extra-curricular classes, plus homework, didn't leave me much time to relax, have fun, and be a kid. I was exhausted... and very resentful.

16: The only lessons I truly regret being forced to take were the organ lessons. I could've used that hour to watch episodes of The Rockford Files. Kidding about the Rockford Files.

17: I really wanted to take singing lessons and guitar lessons.

18: I started wearing glasses in Grade 4. My eyesight is now so bad that I need my glasses or contact lenses to see beyond a foot in front of my face. I want Lasik so bad, but I'll wait until I don't have to sell my body to afford it.

19: In elementary school, I was always the girl without a partner in gym class.

20: When I was 10, we were given a dog. We only had her for 4 years, because we were moving to a brand-new-build house, and my mother didn't want to take the dog with us to the new place. My father gave her to the Humane Society to her most certain death.

21: When I was 13, my orphaned 18yo cousin on my mother's side came from the Philippines to live with us. We are close, and I consider her my sister.

22: Other than my parents and sister, I have no other relatives in town. I have extended family living in Seattle (Washington), Surrey (BC), and the Philippines. Thanks to Facebook, I've found a whole new bunch of relatives in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.

23: Some people think my first celebrity crush was Scott Baio. Actually, it was Donny Osmond. Because, you know, he was a little bit rock 'n' roll.

24: I wore braces for 3 1/2 years, had surgery to fix my diastema, had day surgery to remove my 4 wisdom teeth, and now wear bridges to replace 2 teeth that never grew in. I'm now officially a robot.

25: I'm 5'3".

26: I went to Catholic elementary school. My parents claim that I was the first Filipino student to attend that school.

27: For high school, I went to an all-girls' Catholic private school. At graduation, I tried to burn my uniform. It just melted. It was made of polyester.

28: I played organ for my parents' choir at church every Sunday for 6 years. I don't ever recall agreeing to do it, but there I was.

29: Despite being raised Catholic, I now practice a more Buddhist/Pagan way of living. Having overly-devout, near-fanatically religious parents was a HUGE factor.

30: I had initially planned to become a Nurse.

31: I'm a very affectionate, cheap drunk.

32: I've been a sales girl, a boutique runway model, a waitress, and a bassist for a new wave rock band.

33: According to Myers-Briggs, I'm an INFJ and a very extroverted introvert.

34: I lived with my then-boyfriend Roomie and his mother for 5 months after escaping from my parents' house in the middle of the night.  The previous month, I'd tried to move out with their blessing, but they wouldn't let me leave.  I was 23 at the time.

35: The first apartment I lived in by myself was in a bad neighbourhood. I'd find fresh drops of blood on the stairs just outside my suite at least once a week.

36: One of my boyfriends was as controlling as my father. Another one of my boyfriends was in a band that toured a lot and only came in town for the weekdays. I took back one boyfriend who arrogantly claimed that he never goes back to old girlfriends. Yes, I'm that irresistible. I eventually dumped him (See #38).

37: One of my ex-boyfriends stalked me for a few months.  After I dumped him (See #38).

38: I dumped my last boyfriend to date Roomie. If dumping meant "just stopped calling him back".

39: I met my husband in University. I avoided him for half of my first year because I thought he was a freak. Four years later, the freak was my boyfriend.

40: For several years, we took turns working, which meant that when he got his job at a telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawai'i, it was my turn to relax and take a break.

41: Roomie and I lived in 6 apartments together before we got married.

42: The first and last time we worked at the same time was when we moved back to our home town and worked for Nortel.

43: I proposed to my husband. Naked. With a watch ring.

44: We got married in 2000, so it would be easy for my husband to figure out how many years we were married. Now if only he could remember what the current year is.

45: As corny as it sounds, my husband really is my best friend and the love of my life. I still get butterflies when I know I'm about to see him.

46: It both amuses and aggravates me that the male celebrities I crush on all look somewhat like my husband. Especially my pretend boyfriend Gerard Butler.

47: My husband taught me to drive stick-shift after we bought our beloved burgundy Toyota Tercel. He gave me some line about "being one with the machine". I thought he was full of shit until I realized he was right.

48: I would never leave my husband because I've reached the summit of Crazy and fear that no one else will have me.  Plus his skin smells awesome.

49: I thought my first baby was going to be a girl. I was wrong.

50: I was positive my second baby was going to be a girl. Many friends and family thought I was having a boy. I was right.

51: Do not mess with my kids.  If they cry, you will cry.

52: The words guaranteed to make me cry: "I love you, Momma." Seriously. Total blubbering idiot. And they say it a lot, so I'm technically a moron now.

53: After being a hula & tahitian dancer for 30 years, I finally took the plunge in 2005 and opened my own hula halau (school) called Makana Aloha Hula Dance School & Performance Group.

54: After only 2 months of opening, I was interviewed for a "dance for fitness" article in the national fashion magazine Flare. They chose my hula school specifically because it was in the middle of the Canadian Prairie.

55: In December 2006, I closed the doors of my Hula School after only 1.5 years of operation, because I felt like I was missing too much of my children's young lives.

56: Since the school's closing, the calls for classes still consistently -- and annoyingly -- continued to come.  Eventually, in June 2009, I decided to change my cellphone number.

57: No matter how idyllic living in Hawai'i was and the constant supply of hula, I'd be hard pressed to live in the US again.

58: I love being Canadian. Do you hear that, US border guards?!!!

59: I love being a Filipina too.

60: My favourite colour is burgundy.

61: My favourite scents to wear are coconut and jasmine.

62: I prefer to drive standard and get all nervous when I have to drive automatic.

63: I love reading. My favourite genre is erotic-romance, followed closely by sci-fi and historical-romance.

64: My favourite books are Dune, The Bride, and Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Honourable mention goes to Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach. None of those are erotica.

65: I would happy eating garlic fried rice, sashimi, and pavlova every day for the rest of my life.

66: I also have the warm fuzzies for beef jerky and Creme Brulee.

67: My favourite junk foods are BBQ flavoured taco chips and root beer.

68: If I could only have 5 tv channels, they would be Space, HGTV, FoodTV, Discovery, and any channel that will give me my current favourite show Futurama.

69: My favourite tv show of all time is Newsradio. I own the DVDs for the first four seasons only because those were the shows with Phil Hartman and were the funniest. I have no plans to own any of the following seasons. Those seasons don't exist to me.

70: Despite my favourite show being a comedy, I'm addicted to science fiction and faithfully watched all episodes of Farscape, Stargate:Atlantis, and all Star Trek shows (except that nausea-inducing DS9) until they were canceled.

71: My favourite bands of all time are No Doubt, Depeche Mode, and The Police. Honourable mention: Duran Duran.

72: My favourite actor is not my pretend boyfriend Gerard Butler.  It's Steve Bacic.

73: I love watching movies, but prefer to wait until a movie goes to DVD before watching it... unless it has theatre-worthy special effects.

74: When watching movies at a theatre, I prefer to be by myself. So that I don't have anyone talking to me during the movie.

75: My favourite movies of all time are Monty Python & the Holy Grail, A Room with a View, and When Harry Met Sally, none of which I've ever watched in a theatre.

76: I very rarely drink alcohol because there are times it makes me feel like I've just ingested poison. That being said, my boozy drink of choice is gin & tonic.

77: I prefer to drink water or green tea.

78: My favourite Starbucks drink is decaf soy half-sweet caramel macchiato.

79: I hate when people drop by unannounced. If you do, you will be forced to see me in my sexy ketchup stained t-shirt and the yoga pants with the weird hole in the shin where I cut it by accident during a scissor mishap. Are you turned on yet?

80: I will never eat balut again in my entire life. Same with peanut butter.

81: I hate talking on the phone. If you call me, you will be speaking to my machine. I will then call you back and talk to *your* machine.

82: I would rather be too hot than too cold. Actually, I have a very narrow temperature range of comfort -- I will still complain (a lot) if I'm too hot.

83: The colour I dislike the most is grey, which doesn't explain why several grey pieces in my closet are my favourite.

84: I am the only filipino I know who doesn't LOVE Karaoke. There. I said it.

85: I hate the word "moist".

86: I hate rollercoasters and have repeatedly refused to ride them after a trip to Chicago's Six Flags when I was 19. I looked up and saw the cars of their rollercoaster temporarily airborne during a turn.

87: My biggest, most-selfish dream right now is to travel... a lot. Owning a Crackberry is a very close second.

88: A less-selfish dream of mine is to design and build an earth-friendly, energy-efficient, minimalist home for my family on the very spot where my current house is.

89: I have horrible cougariffic crushes on Jared Padalecki, Rob Pattinson, and Joe Jonas.

90: If I hadn't married and had kids, I'd probably be living in Toronto or Vancouver. With a cat. I'd be Cat-Lady, and probably not in the hot, sexy, crime-fighting way.

91: For my first 25 years, people guessed I was East Indian, Canadian First Nations, Thai, Laotian, Malaysian, or Singaporean -- NEVER Filipina.

92: I don't find reincarnation completely unbelieveable.

93: I don't actually believe in a hell... or a heaven, either.

94: My thumbs are different. From each other.

95: I hate parting with books. I need to know that the person I'm giving the book to will treasure it like I did.

96: I know all the words to the Spiderman Theme from the 60s, and I sing it to my kids upon request, much to the amusement of the people at the mall one March afternoon.

97: I take my hot dogs and burgers with only ketchup.

98: I'm a morning person, and love getting up earlier than anyone else. The morning alone-time is the best.

99: If I could attach my laptop to my arm, I probably would.

100: No matter how much I complain about my ginormous boobs, I really love 'em and am quite proud of them.