what i needed to hear.

my friend and i last night were talking about the importance or value of saying things, that sometimes, though it might be unpleasant to hear, are things that truly need to be said.

this needs to be said to me, because i sometimes fall into the trap of living in a tiny self-absorbed bubble where i feel like a goldfish on display.

sometimes, no one's looking. and that's okay too.

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The Cure for Self-Consciousness
By Martha Beck from #I#O, The Oprah Magazine#/I# , July 2007

Are you feeling inhibited? Squash self-doubt, find your confidence and finally hold your head high.

You step into the party feeling reasonably confident. True, your favorite little black dress feels somewhat tight, but it's still elegant, and the wind outside only tousled your hair a little. Then, just as you're preparing to mingle, it happens: You pass a mirror and glimpse your reflection—your horrifying, horrifying reflection. The dress isn't just tight; it fits like Luciano Pavarotti's diving suit. Your hair looks as though a crazed weasel nested, bore young, and died there. Aghast, you wobble off your high heels and sprain an ankle. All eyes are glued on you. All conversation focuses on your disgrace. Everyone begins texting hilarious descriptions of you from their cell phones.

In your dreams, baby.

I mean this both literally and figuratively. Most of us occasionally dream about being embarrassed in social settings. But even in waking life, many of us operate as if Simon Cowell is doing a play-by-play of our work, wardrobe and snack choices. One team of researchers has dubbed this phenomenon the "spotlight effect." In the beam of imaginary spotlights, many of us suffer untold shame and create smaller, weaker, less zestful lives than we deserve. Terrified that the neighbors might gossip, the critics might sneer, the love letter might fall into the hands of evil bloggers, we never even allow our minds to explore what our hearts may be calling us to do. These efforts to avoid embarrassment often keep us from imagining, let alone fulfilling, the measure of our destiny. To claim it, we need to develop a mental dimmer switch.
Turning the Lights Down Low

Thomas Gilovich, PhD, Victoria Husted Medvec, PhD, and Kenneth Savitsky, PhD, the psychologists who coined the term spotlight effect, also devised numerous ways to measure it. In one experiment, they had college students enter a room with other students while wearing an "embarrassing" T-shirt. (The shirt bore the likeness of a certain singer, whom I won't identify here. I will say that for days after reading this study, I was medically unable to stop humming "Copacabana.") When the mortified students were asked to guess how many people in the room would remember the face on their T-shirt, they gave a number about twice as high as the number of students who actually remembered the shirt.

Other studies support what this one suggested: The spotlight effect makes most of us assume we're getting about twice as much attention as we actually are. When Lincoln said, "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here," he was wrong—but only because he was president of the United States. If you are currently president, rest assured that millions will note and long remember if, say, you barf on the prime minister of Japan. However, if you are not president, you're probably pointlessly blinded by the glare of imaginary social judgments.

These judgments aren't limited just to times when we mess up. Our distorted perceptions mean we not only exaggerate the impact of our errors but also undersell our inspirations and contributions. For example:

* You modestly mumble an idea in a meeting, assuming that co-workers will be awestruck if they like it, appalled if they don't. Net effect: Nobody really hears the idea—until the annoying extrovert across the table repeats it more loudly, and gets all the glory.
* You wear clothes a bit duller and more concealing than the ones you love, only to look back years later and wish you'd bared and dared more in your youth. (As one of my friends sighed about her self-conscious daughter, "If she only realized that at her age, you're beautiful even if you're not beautiful.")
* You sing, swing, and mamba only in the privacy of your home, never with other people. Repressing the urge to sing "Copacabana," you miss the joy of sharing silly or sultry abandon with the people you love—and the people you may never get to love because inhibition robs you of the confidence needed to form a bond.

These self-limiting behaviors have no positive side; contrary to what many assume, they rarely save us from doing things we'll later regret. In fact, Gilovich and Medvec have found in other studies that, in the long run, people most often regret the things they failed to try, rather than the things they bombed at. Trying yields either success or an opportunity to learn; not trying has no positive result besides avoiding mockery or envy that (research shows) wouldn't be nearly as big or bad as we fear.
How to Free Yourself from the Glare

Double everything.

Just knowing that the spotlight effect is real and ubiquitous can begin to liberate us from its inhibiting clutches. I find it very comforting to have an actual number associated with my shame-based illusions: Spotlight effect studies suggest that people typically pay about 50 percent as much attention to me as I think they are. The first time I actually stood under a spotlight, in a high school play, the director told me, "Small gestures look embarrassed, so they're embarrassing. If you're going to do something, and you don't want to look foolish, do it BIG." Now, thanks to Gilovich, Medvec and Savitsky, I know how big to make my actions—about twice as big as I think they should be.

I've been experimenting with this in many different circumstances: raising both my hands, instead of one, to ask a question of a lecturer I much admire; pausing twice as long for dramatic effect while telling a story to some friends; eating two servings of a fabulous dessert at a literary club luncheon. The result? I do seem to have attracted more attention, but rather than the disapproving judgment I expected, most people seem to feel pleased and liberated, made safer in their own skin by my willingness to live large in mine.

I believe this reaction is a major reason a lovely lady from Hawaii named Brook Lee once won the Miss Universe pageant. When asked what she'd do if she had no rules to follow, she replied, "I would eat everything in the whole world—twice!" That one word—"twice!"—struck a chord with me, the audience and the judges, landing Ms. Lee squarely beneath the spotlight she actually wanted. Why not join her by doubling the social behaviors you usually limit: the energy with which you communicate, the intensity of the colors you wear, the number of times you laugh, the clarity of the opinions you voice. You may think this will attract massive disapproval from others. Actually, you'll be lucky to attract more than a passing glance, and my experience (not to mention Ms. Lee's) suggests it will be more approving than not.
Think Through Your Limits—Not to Them.

"You can't break that board by hitting it," my karate teacher told me. "Hit something 10 inches behind it. As far as you're concerned, the board doesn't even exist."

"But," I pointed out, "it does exist." (I am a trained observer.) My sensei shrugged. "That's what you think."

Mentally noting that this man had been hit in the head many, many times, I proceeded to batter my hands to smithereens, trying to break that unbreakable board. When every knuckle was swollen, tender and bleeding, I said, "My hands hurt."

"Yes," said my sensei. "Your mind is really damaging them."

You get the metaphor: We smash into barriers of shame, embarrassment and regret because we pull our punches in myriad social situations. Stopping at what we think is the limit of embarrassing behavior, we let others claim the credit, the opportunity, the job, the person we love from afar.

The next time you feel performance anxiety in any form, remember that the negative attention you fear does not exist except in your mind—if this works with the hard, cold reality of my ice block, I guarantee it will work with something as vaporous as other people's opinions. Act as if there is no spotlight on you, even if there is one. Say, do, and be what you would if no one else were looking. It will be scary at first, but if you persist, there will come that liberating moment when you'll feel yourself sailing straight through your life's most inhibiting barriers without even feeling a bump.
Ask Yourself the Universal Question.

Once, I had an intense, emotional cell phone discussion with a friend while riding in a taxi. At a certain point I fell into a strangled silence.

"What's wrong with you?" my friend asked. "Why aren't you talking?" Covering my mouth with one hand, I whispered, "The driver can hear me."

At this point, my friend said something so lucid, so mind expanding, so simultaneously Socratic and Zenlike, that I memorized it on the spot. I've gained comfort by repeating it to myself in many other situations. I encourage you, too, to memorize this question and use it when you find yourself shrinking back from an imaginary spotlight. My friend said—and I quote:

"So?"

This brilliant interrogatory challenged me to consider the long-term consequences of being embarrassed (really, who cares?). It reminded me that failing to act almost always leaves me with more regret than taking embarrassing action. Here are a few instances where the Universal Question might help a person break through imprisoning inhibitions:

"If I say what I really think, people might disagree with me."

So?

"If I leave my drunken abusive husband, his crazy family will call me a bitch."

So?

"If I go windsurfing, I'll look like a klutz. Plus, people will see my cellulite."

So?

There are endless applications for the Universal Question. I suggest using it every time you feel yourself hesitating to do something that might deepen or broaden your life. The answer to the question "So?" is almost always "Well, when you put it that way…" It pushes us into the spotlight, showing us we can survive there and freeing us to act on our best instincts.

Today, remember that what you perceive as prudent social caution is probably limiting your life to about half its natural capacity; that if you did everything you long to do twice as often, twice as boldly, twice as openly, you wouldn't attract a shred more social pressure than you already think you're getting. Consider that vaulting well past the limits of your inhibitions will probably earn you more positive attention than negative judgment. More often than not, this will work out well. If it doesn't, remember the most enlightening of questions: "So?" Little by little, you'll feel and see that the worst consequences of living in the light are less oppressive than the best advantages of hiding in the shadows. And you'll have little to fear from the rest of us, who will only be inspired by your daring as we sit, blinking and bedazzled, in the private spotlights of our own attention.

O columnist Martha Beck is the author of The Four-Day Win (Rodale).


By Martha Beck from O, The Oprah Magazine, July 2007. © 2007 Harpo Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Royal Reunion

Once upon a time, 6 beautiful girls found themselves in the same block during freshman year of school in the UP College of Law. Then, they were young, hopeful, and naive, and now --- well, they still are.

To prove it, here is actual documentation of what goes on when the 6 girls of the Chungkua federation come together for a much-awaited reunion. To Dagger Look, Black Ninja, Grasshopper, Flower Pot, and Precious Pearl (our chinese names)...thanks for the funnest night ever. Ironically occuring during the most dramatic weekend ever.

Our new motto - "Look at my mole!" hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.


Lifted in its entirety from our faithful scribe, Dagger Look.

------------------------------------------

Probably brought about by Fr JBoy's revelation that law students are very much bothered about the matters of the heart more than anything else (as evidenced by the resounding Lord, here our prayer in response to his intention for the lovelives of the law students), the Chinese girls and I played this little game after dinner time.

You, similarly easy-to-please (aka shallow) people, know how this works, right?

We took out the queens from the deck of cards, assigned a belle to each queen, and started asking all sorts of questions, from the most mundane to the most serious, mostly concerning the matters of the heart. From time to time, we changed the assignment of a Chinese Fed girl to each queen (because we're six but there are only four queens), and asked random bypassers (thanks, BJ et al) to ask their questions.

As the official secretary of the Chinese Fed, I have the summary of the Who's Who amongst us (together with my side comments).

Nothing's to be taken seriously though; it's just a game. Supposedly some sort of source for momentary fun and laughter.

O, girls ha, take note: NOTHING. IS. TO. BE. TAKEN. SERIOUSLY.

NB: Some entries were omitted for being against public morals and decency.

Len (Queen of Diamonds)

1. will have the most number of kids
2. will be the first to get married (which is most likely to happen as she is the only one attached)
3. will be a politician
4. will first go through plastic surgery (For those of you who know Len, you know how accurate this could be. For a moment, I almost believed that the cards don't lie.)
5. will be the wife of a rich guy
6. will be the first to be hugged this week (Hm... I wish it were me)
7. is the favorite of Sir Sison (Not me? waaaah)
8. will marry a friend
9. will first eat Sonia's cupcakes (Yes, it matters that much to us who eats them first)
10. have the most number of one-night stands (Haha, you are dead meat. Omar!!!)
11. will become a judge (in a court ha, not in a beauty contest)
12. will have the first tv commercial
13. will be a legislator

Mel (Queen of Diamonds)

1. will first to go to Europe (Er... I want this!!!!)
2. most religious (Ahaha.. No comment.)
3. will be the first to have a tattoo
4. will have an "artistahing anak" (I think we shall be in-laws)
5. will fall for bad boys
6. is the most adventurous, er.. somewhere
7. will have a "pang-MMK" love story
8. will stay married to her first husband (This is supposed to be good, right?)
9. has lesbian tendencies (Ahahaha... As said by Ia, I think it's the Povedan in you.)
10. will win in a singing contest (Her rendition of Love Potion No 9 gets a 100. )
11. will be the second to have a BF (up and against Ia, Rosanne, and Iz)

Rosanne (Queen of Spades)

1. will be the most famous (Okay, people. Now you know who to please this early on.)
2. will marry a foreigner
3. will marry a childhood friend
4. will marry a batchmate
5. will marry a doctor (Haha, I'm so happy it's me. I want a doctor for a husband! Sorry girls, better luck next time.)
6. will be the richest
7. will have more than five children (What? Maybe I'll be like Angelina Jolie. I'll adopt kids! Um, Brad, donde es tu?)
8. will be the first to travel this year
9. is in love right now (Er? I don't think so)
10. will live the longest (As Ia said, "Ang masamang damo....")
11. has someone secretly in love with her (Nye.)
12. will be the first to have a boyfriend (Up and against Ia, Iz, and Mel.)
13. will be the first to become a partner in a law firm.
14. will be the next Ma'am Beth (Hmmm.... interesting.)
15. will have the most number of shoes (Wahaha, boy, am I in luck today..)
16. will have multiple boyfriends at the same time (Uh? I'm very faithful.)
17. will have her first boyfriend as her husband
18. will have a husband who will suffer a "certain sickness"
19. will not be called anymore to recite within this semester (Please make this real.)

Izzy (Queen of Hearts)

1. will be the most loved by her husband (Aw.. lucky girl.)
2. is the most ----crazed (Ahihihi)
3. will have the biggest gemstone on her finger
4. will become an actress (Ngayon pa lang, artista naman na tong si Iz... Ay corny comedy actress pala. But actress nonetheless)
5. will have the biggest lingerei collection
6. will marry someone who is much older than her
7. will marry someone from UP Law
8. will have the juciest lovelife this year
9. will have the most active ---- life
10. is in denial that she's in love (Uy, sino ito?!)
11. will be the first prof in UP Law
12. will win a lotto jackpot (Balato naman diyan!)
13. will be the first to win a case
14. is now in love like a teenager (Sobrang naiintriga na talaga ako ha)
15. has someone who has a hidden desire for her (Aba naman, pumupuro ang lovelife ha)
16. will still look like a 16-year-old when she reaches 50 years old
17. will have her first car because of her earnings from work
18. will have twins
19. will have the first recit this week (Haha, good luck, girl)
20. will have her own column in a newspaper someday
21. will be the first to see the Northern lights
22. will fall for a call boy (Ahahaha... Ewan, this Q is sooo weird)
23. will give birth through C-section (This Q scares me, really.)
24. will have the mose number of ---- in her life (Hmm...)

Tessa (Queen of Hearts)

1. will have an "artistahing asawa" (Aba aba aba)
2. will have the hottest ---- life
3. will have the most "bonggang kasal"
4. will study LLM abroad (Wow, ang yabang.)
5. will convert her religion for her husband (Ain't this sweet?)



Ia (Queen of Clubs)

1. will have the most number of boyfriends
2. will have a relationship with a professor (Oops...)
3. will top the bar (Naks naman... Go girl!)
4. will fall for a poor boy (I don't really see anything wrong with this, do we, Ia?
5. will have the first --- encounter this week (Hm, ano ito?)
6. will be the first to have a grandchild
7. will have twins from different fathers (Sounds weird? Dr. Pascual told us in MedJur class that this is not impossible.)
8. will get annulled or divorced
9. has a fetish (Hahaha)
10. will become the thinnest (I want this!!!!!)
11. will have the most number of jewelry
12. will be a sugar mommy (Ahahahaha)
13. will marry a blockmate (Uy, sino naman ito!?)
14. will be the third to have a BF (Up and against Iz, Mel, and Sanne)
15. will have a bodyguard

salamat kay val.

during a conversation where i was inconsolable -

"wag ka na magstew. hindi ka naman beef."

hahaha. *smiles.

help.

someone, anyone, give me the wisdom and the strength to make the best decisions.

still luckier than most

sometimes i think about how disparaged we are to be living in a third world country run by people who are too corrupt to lead us to any real progress. but reading about this made me realize how good we have it still.

this is an article i found on the MSN website. hope it gives you clarity as well.

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International Report: Women Forced to Commit Suicide
By Jan Goodwin

"Kill Yourself or Your Family Will Kill You"

In Turkey, honor suicides are now replacing honor killings for girls who bring "shame" on their families.

Perched on the edge of the sofa so that her feet just reach the floor, Derya, 17, is the picture of innocence: large almond eyes, too-long jeans turned up at the cuff, Alice headband. But Derya is here at this women's shelter in rural Turkey because her family wants her dead. Her crime: talking to a male classmate on her cell phone — the closest thing to dates many teens in strict Islamic societies have before marriage.

Derya met Recep, 16, in high school in 2005. "In those phone chats after school, I fell in love," she says. "That had never happened to me before, because in my


culture, love comes after marriage."

In March of 2006, when her uncle (with whom she was living) realized what was going on, he confiscated Derya's cell phone. She bought another. He took that one away, too. She borrowed one from a friend. Her uncle alerted her mother, who warned her to cut off communication with Recep. "But I couldn't stop," Derya says. "Part of me was angry. Everyone uses cell phones. Why not me?"

Two months later, she received a text message. "Don't come home again," it read. "You have shamed our honor. You must kill yourself. If you don't, we will." More threats followed — from brothers, uncles, male cousins — sometimes 10 or 15 a day. "It was terrifying," says Derya. She began to see only one solution to her dilemma.

Last June, Derya threw herself into the fast-flowing Tigris River near the Iraqi border, but a passing police patrol pulled her out. At home the following day, she attached a rope to a stout ceiling hook meant to hold a baby's cradle, then tied it around her neck and kicked over the chair on which she was standing. When her uncle heard the crash, he cut down the half-conscious teenager and rushed her to the hospital, having summoned some sympathy for her. But after she was released, the text messages intensified — her family cursing her for failing at suicide and her uncle for saving her. Derya made one last, failed, attempt, cutting her wrists with a kitchen knife. "I so hated my life," she says. "I just wanted it to end."

Walking along the Bosporus or strolling through Istanbul, the look is familiar: girls sporting skinny jeans, high-heeled boots, cropped tops, and tattoos, smoking cigarettes. On the surface, relationships between young men and women seem decidedly Western. There's no shortage of bars and discos; there's even the occasional store selling sex toys. So it comes as a bit of a surprise to learn that modern Turkish women are expected to live with their families and guard their virginity until they marry.

But then, Turkey has long been a paradox. Women received the right to vote and run for public office in 1930, years before their counterparts in many European countries. In 1993, Turkey elected a female prime minister, while the United States has yet to give a woman the top job. Still, though primary-school education has been mandatory since 1927, in rural regions, nearly half of all women have been denied schooling by their families and remain illiterate. Head scarves are banned in government offices and universities, but a growing number of women wear them as part of an Islamic resurgence. Just as confounding, Turkey's current Islamist government won by an overwhelming majority — but claims to be committed to secularism. And in a country where forced virginity tests in high schools were only recently outlawed, abortion is legal and more readily available than in the U.S.

"When it comes to gender issues in Turkey, the picture is mixed," says European Union spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy. "Turkey has the highest proportion of female professors in Europe, at 27 percent. At the same time, we know the stories about victims of honor crimes." Such crimes involve family members taking the life of a wife, daughter, sister, or niece because she has shamed them, usually by wearing Western clothes, forming friendships with men, or marrying someone not chosen by her parents.

Lately, human-rights advocates have noticed a new trend in Turkey: Since the country began expressing a desire to join the European Union, there's been a noticeable drop in the number of reported honor killings. In 2004, for the first time, Turkey made honor killings punishable by life imprisonment. Could the country be cleaning up its act in order to meet the standards set forth by the EU?

Then advocates noticed another unusual statistic: "Between 2001 and 2006, there were 1,806 murders in Turkey that fell under the definition of honor killings," says State Minister for Women and Family Affairs Nimet Çubukçu. "Meanwhile, during the same period, 5,375 women committed suicide." In Batman, a town neighboring Derya's, female suicide rates are rapidly increasing. "Recently, seven girls committed suicide in a month," says Batman City Councilwoman Nurten Uzumeu. "Two months ago, we had 20 more suicides."

Turkish authorities now suspect that "honor suicides" are replacing traditional honor killings as a way to eliminate a woman who has shamed her family, without drawing the attention of the police. "It's not right that girls get treated like this and boys get all the freedom," says Derya, who is now receiving protection from a local shelter. "The men in my family are viewed as God. Women aren't even treated as human beings."


At the edge of a main artery outside the city, a large house sits behind a high metal fence. For security reasons, the window blinds are always closed. Fourteen women and six children call this place home, having fled the threats of their husbands and families.

Sitting in a wooden chair, Zeynab, 33, plucks compulsively at her skirt with calloused hands. Short and stocky, wearing a floor-length skirt, long-sleeved blouse, knit vest, thick socks, and a head scarf, she is a rural Kurd. Quietly, she tells her story: She and her husband married for love, refusing a customary arranged marriage — something for which her in-laws never forgave her. When her husband, Ali, died of meningitis, she lost his protection. Since tradition decrees that a son and his wife live with his parents, Zeynab was all the more vulnerable.

"They'd hit me with a metal bar, drag me across a room by my hair," she says. "One beating was so bad, I passed out. I was terrified and depressed." Then one afternoon, her brother-in-law walked up to her and shoved a gun into her hand. "'You should kill yourself,' he told me. 'You are a black mark on our honor.' If I didn't kill myself, my mother-in-law said they'd do it for me."

That was spring 2006. By June, Zeynab made her move, slipping out of the house and grabbing her 11-year-old son, Hussein, who was playing outside. A woman she had met in a nearby park had told her about the shelter.



"For the first time, Hussein is in school," says Zeynab. "But every day when he goes, my heart is like a bird in my chest. I'm always terrified the family will capture him, and I won't see him again. I have nightmares every night that I go out and they catch us."

By any account, Turkey has a long way to go before meeting the EU's membership criteria. "The EU needs a stable, increasingly democratic, and prosperous Turkey on its side," says EU spokeswoman Nagy. "The country has progressed a lot in recent years, but there is still much to be achieved."

Then there are those Turks who see an anti-Muslim bias in the EU's criticisms of their country and claim they no longer want to join a "Christian club." "The imperialist EU dares to tell us how to improve the rights of our women," wrote Dogu Ergil, a respected

Turkish Daily News

columnist, in February. "In my mind this is a direct intervention into the internal matters of a country."

It is difficult to say what will win out — hard-line Islamism or progressive thinking. Either way, the lid has been lifted on honor suicides. Last September, eight female high-school juniors and seniors in Batman set the town on its ear by marching from their homes to the local cemetery after yet another honor suicide. They carried placards reading, "No More Violence. No More Suicides." Not surprisingly, the girls soon began receiving threats.

Still, says local sociologist Gulistan Toskin, "It's the first time anything like this has happened in Batman. It was a risky thing for them to do. They ignited a fire, and it's still burning."

a tribute to the seemingly mundane.

i keep thinking that i need earth shattering news in order to have a reason to blog. yet i failed to document most of the significant occurrences that has happened to me in the past few months.

i have not been incredibly busy (not lately anyway) but despite the lack of money, direction, a love life and most things that grownups seem to have, i have been decidedly calm and surprisingly happy. my days have become overly simple but i find that i enjoy knowing what to expect.

i love that i can wake up and have breakfast and drink coffee and get updated on the news and watch morning tv. i love that i now have time to focus on class materials and actually understand the things i'm supposed to. i love that i have teachers who are good and who make sense and who inspire me to open my books.

i love that after class i can go home and watch tv and read a book and sleep without the painful fear in my stomach that i may never finish what i need to finish before morning time. i love that i appreciate conversations that i have with people now, because i have time to listen, even more so, to have time to ask people how they are and play the role of the indulgingly good friend.

i enjoy my weekends a lot more than i did before. i enjoy finding myself in new situations and meeting new people. i find myself becoming more intrigued by new people that i meet, and interested to build new friendships. i enjoy occasionally throwing away my inhibitions for surprise karaoke nights (99 baby!) and impromptu hang-out parties. rekindling old friendships and finding joy in teeny tiny crushes on boys who are cute in a non-obvious way. hahaha. hanging out with kindred spirits, my block girlfriends and finding ourselves in silly situations, random laughtrips, and more food adventures.

it has just been a pleasure lately. now if only i gain insight into what i need to be doing in order to provide for myself continuously...i'd be all set.

yeah, mundaneness can be awesome.

for now, the only thing i await is for someone to come and ask me to dance.