Bisdak Babbles

It’s almost 6:00AM and I still can’t sleep. Yes, I am going home to the Philippines after a couple of years, but not to have a grand vacation. How I wish that’s the case…

It’s been a few hours since I received the news about my father. At about 10:00PM (Philippine Time) last night, my father had a cardiac arrest and he didn’t make it to the hospital. I just talked to him on the phone yesterday morning… How I wish God allowed my father to live until my planned vacation on October. How I wish my father waited until I could treat him and my mother to a vacation here in Japan. How I wish I could take him to Australia, the U.S., to anywhere God sends me to. We haven’t had a Christmas for years when we’re all together. We haven’t even taken another family picture since I was 5 years old. I wish…

We couldn’t do anything but weep and endure this numbing pain. There’s nothing we can do but have faith and believe that we are all in God’s hands.

Dear friends, thank you for extending your condolences. Thank you all for your comforting words and for the prayers.

In honor of the greatest father in the whole world, here’s his life story:
My Father, Our Hero

Here’s my usual junk food supply. I make sure that I have salty and sweet ones. (cheese sticks, curry-flavored Pringles, KitKat, chewing gum, and mochi candies).

A closer look at Japanese (mochi) candies:

A colleague told me about the anime Moyashimon (もやしもん）. Tadayasu Sawaki, the main character, is a freshman at an agricultural university. Tadayasu can see and communicate with microorganisms. The anime is really funny and educational as well. In here, you can see the cutest bacteria ever:

The opening theme is very cute, too. I am actually planning to buy one of those stuffed microbes.

It’s been more than a month since I’ve posted my last Thursday Thirteen. I’m glad I’ve got the mood to write my list again.

I’ll reveal some of the steps I’ve taken to battle off an enemy for over a decade: acne. I was so desperate (and still am), that I even did some idiotic unique things just to get rid of it.

(1) I’ve been using Shiseido’s Pimplit for a few months. So far, so good.

(2) I heard from a friend that Cutina, an over-the-counter medication here in Japan, is effective. But I guess it really depends on some physical factors, because I think it made my acne worse.

(3) When my father was still working in Saudi Arabia, he often brought home Magic Cream. But my father’s now retired, I ran out of supply, and it became hard to find that certain brand (I forgot the brand name).

(4) Natural Living’s Aloe Vera Jelly was also effective and I can’t remember why I stopped using it.

(5) A friend from college used Chin Chun Su beauty cream. In a way, it helped minimize the pimples but it made my face and my neck skin abnormally lighter than my arms’ and it felt weird so I stopped using it.

(6) San-ing Cream also had the same effects as the Chin Chun Su.

High school days…
(7) I also tried applying aloe vera THE plant. I can’t remember if that was effective, but growing aloe vera wasn’t easy.

(8) Of course I sought the help of the dermatologists but no medication seemed to work!

(9) I think I’ve tried scrubbing my face with every kind of Eskinol. It helped only a little. After all, it’s only a cleanser.

(10) Queens bathe in milk, you say? So I’ve tried washing my face with fresh milk, then leaving it on overnight. It made no difference, aside from the unpleasant smell and the sticky feeling.

(11) Perla soap. To those who are not from the Philippines, Perla is a laundry soap. Many claimed that washing your face with it then leaving it on overnight could eliminate those uglies. But all I got was the burning sensation in my face, sometimes in my eyes!

(12) Face mask from egg whites, then leave them on overnight. How I hated the smell and my scary look when I wake up.

(13) The craziest of all: my mother brought me to an albularyo/folk healer! I was 13 years old at that time and I was made to believe that “curses” might have caused my pimple outbreak! To prevent more outbreaks, I had to wear an amulet! Yep, wear an amulet to prevent pimples. haha! (This is really embarrassing but I can’t help laughing at my stupidity when I think about it. All for acne’s sake!)

Taken near Coogee Beach in Sydney, Australia, in March 2006
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Every mother out there knows how hard it is to try to live “normally” far from her child. Believe me, it’s really hard. I’ve been away from my precious Shaynna for almost two years, so I don’t feel at all deserving to be called a mother. Well, technically, I am. But…

Sentiments aside, I just want to greet all of the mothers out there, a Happy Mothers Day!

To Mama Conching, we love you!

Here’s a rare photo of me as a “mom in action” - one of those precious moments when I felt I was really a mother. Shaynna was about 5 months old, and that lovely lady beside me is my mother.

I’ll be in trouble if she finds out about this. If you look closely, she didn’t have her dentures when this was taken.

When you’re far from home, it would help a lot if you have someone you can talk to about just anything, over a cup of coffee. But do you know that it’s hard to find a coffee shop here in Osaka that’s open 24 hours? Even the Starbucks cafe in Umeda, Osaka’s main northern railway terminus, is open only up to 2:00AM. The Starbucks cafe closest to my apartment and to the Shin-Osaka station is open only up to 10:00PM! We’re glad to have found this cafe (Travel Cafe) because it closes later than Starbucks. It closes at 11:00PM.

I’ve taken an Inuyasha quiz and here’s what it said:



I know that cute giant dog beside me is not from Inuyasha. At least it’s a character from the anime I am currently watching. Do you know him? Yep, he’s Sadaharu from Gintama.