A is for…Ate: this is what I am—to my akong TJ, to my shobe Terenggoy, and to my pinsans whom I dearly love.

Akong: A is for Akong. Akong is what we call my brother TJ. That’s a Chinese pet name for little boys. He is one of the pinakamakulit little boys I have ever known. When we were kids, I and my play mates always tried to avoid letting TJ know what we were up to because surely, he would just turn everything into a disaster! He’s maligalig. Couldn’t keep himself from toppling down things, our Nanay’s figurines, heck, he couldn’t even behave and try not hurt himself. He would always tease my friends and would always insist on being the policeman or the daddy when in fact, we were playing school-school! When we grew up, he remained makulit and pestered our bunso, Tere. Yet Akong is one of the most wonderful men the world fortunately has.

Antukin: I have been known to have the ability to sleep whenever, wherever. I once fell asleep while sitting on the foot of a staircase in a friend’s house. I fell asleep for probably two seconds while biting on a lanzones (which I was eating to keep me awake during a training seminar); fell asleep while taking pictures in an interview job…


B is for…

Brilliant: my mind is brilliant—or so I’d like to belive. Hehe.

Betchay: my mom’s close friends call her Betchay. Her full name though is Elizabeth Leonila. All my friends think Betchay is the coolest mom a girl could have. Of course, we’ve had fights but Mama is one-of-a-kind. She is perhaps the strongest woman I know. When Papa left us, she wept, mourned for a love lost, grieved for her children who lost a father, then pulled herself together and went on living…

To this day, Mama is now happy with a man who loves her, Big Kuya.

C is for…

Crush: I had my first one when I was eleven. His name was Arjayson and I didn’t even know that was “it”. I always looked forward to spending summer vacation at my grandparents’ farm in Bulacan because Arjayson lived in one of the my family’s apartments. He would climb aratiles trees and would always tease me I couldn’t climb a tree because I was a girl. He was my crush, my first crush though.

And isn’t it nice to have crushes from time to time? : )

Chips Ahoy!: My favorite is Chips Ahoy! Chewy and Stripes. I don’t see these in the supermarkets nowadays but I remember the first time I laid my eyes on a big blue Chips Ahoy pack: I was all gluttonous and didn’t want to share the cookies with anyone. I kept them in my backpack, forgot about it and the Mickey Mice in the house ate `em up—including my bag (bored holes).

Chinoy: A lot of people ask me “are you Chinese”? whenever they hear my surname. Yes and no. Yes because my Lolo Julio came from Macao and my Lola Mommy is from Shanghai, only that her mother was a Cebuana. My maternal grandparents has 50% Chinese lineage too. And no, I’m not Chinese because 1) I don’t use chopsticks 2) I have a fear of seeing Chinese Opera live 3) I cant count 1-10 in Mandarin or Fukkien 4) because I am simply not.