Arctic Beetle

One thing I confirmed after tolerating a day being in blindfold and harassed (in a non-sexual manner that is) persistently ere being formally inducted into the university organization I applied to: voices are to the same degree powerful as the content of the speech delivered by the voice itself. (This is in contrary to how useless and irrelevant to the game the voice selection process is in Neverwinter Nights.) They are powerful enough to instigate a mind devoid of visual images to make up a faint notion of what the person speaking is like — lanky, masculine, alpha female and a gamut of general descriptions that go along with the gamut of voices possible.

Suppose I’m a guy, I’d love to have a voice like John Legend’s or any quasi-baritone, raspy type of voice that can make women willingly engage in a love exhibition in a park underneath the stars (in short, PDA) and strip down to the number of garments Miyabi Ozawa usually wears in her AV (don’t ask me why I know her, I just do). I’m also speaking as a girl here, if I might add. Now I kind of understand what my firstborn sister said about being dominated by a man in a relationship. With my ideal voice of a man commanding me, surely I’d forget my thoughts about how our society should be a matriarchal one and my conspiracy theories about Adam and Eve of my own volition!

In all honesty, I find the quality of my voice sufficient for my standards, despite it being usually misindentified over the landline phone as my sister’s (even by our father). Not sexy in any way but adequately full and mighty to scare those who even attempt to get into a verbal fight with me and sometimes, soft and docile to make a fool out of people and have them believe that I am actually demure. (Well, I am demure, but not to those who gained my trust that I can spazz, squeal, hyperventilate and laugh both weirdly and loudly in front of them.) I still haven’t confirmed the validity of the compliment which states that my voice is pleasing to the ear and can potentially attract a lot of ants after passing through phone wires and cell sites, but maybe you can. Feel free to hear this for yourself, call me at 0928xxxxxxx—  and you thought I was going to make stalking me easier for you? Don’t take my part-time job lightly, son.

If ever my career as a scientist, a doctor or a writer will fail, I would gladly consider the possible effectuality of my voice in the field of radio. It has always been a charming job from my point of view— answering phone calls, text messages, IMs and tweets, spilling the beans about your life every now and then and be someone whose voice can compel a listener to Google her. May it be a masa station or an AM one, I will not give that much attention so long as they can give me the dough, the limelight and the brand of being a DJ. Given the chance to pick and select though, it’d be the station JAM 88.3. (They’re paying me to advertise them even though minus me, I have one or two reader rating.) You guys, prepare for the dawn of DJ Sultry and the record she will set for having the most number of compliments and advances she’ll receive on air! Two consecutive sentences filled with my fantasies— right, New Found Glory, I am the Queen of Wishful Thinking.

It isn’t often or more like, the number of times that you get to do things like eating, walking, dancing the “I-bottomless ang saya” jingle and singing the PCR Song in blindfold will not exceed one. I found the whole experience of talking and identifying people through their voices fun, exciting and lastly.. sexy. For one, it reminds me so much of those smut mangas which usually involves blindfolds, handkerchiefs and a lot of bondage. (I can’t believe I’m saying this. Again, it must be the effect of my estrogen levels.)

Just now, for the lack of something interesting or amusing to write about for the past two weeks and for the need to brush up my writing for it to be creative enough for that Creative Writing class, I’ve decided to chronicle my sister’s journey to the Ring of Fire — no not yet, to the Island of Love at least. She should thank me for doing this series of posts as this will serve as her own time capsule of the digital age, something she can look back on in the years to come. (I read that freaking line a lot from freaking blog introductions and it’s freaking jading just like how jading it is to see three freakings in one sentence.) The only thing I am maintaining from the second sentence before this is “She should thank me” and that’s because I am giving her a glittery spotlight in my blog. Blame hormonal imbalance for my cockiness and irritability.

Anyway, my sister and her boyfriend have decided to get married in May next year — the same month they first get to meet each other. Very crazy, I don’t deny it, but the mother of the fellow argues that with his son’s age approaching 44, he has already wasted a lot of time.. so yes, shotgun wedding is the way to go. A brief overview of what the situation will be like in May: my dad is in Saudi Arabia, my eldest sister is in Japan spending the last two months of her one-year contract there and I, on a completely unrelated note, have a longer hair by then. Two family members missing and under 28 days, he has to meet all of our relatives in Quezon and Bulacan, get to know my sister personally, go out on a date with her, fix my sister’s Visa and passport, make the necessary preparations for their wedding and finally, the wedding itself. Let me repeat, 28 days. Maybe he knows how to time-bend.

Of course, my parents and I disagree with this. They have seen what my sister was like to his first boyfriend Emil and just a caveat, it was utterly disastrous. The first time they met, everything ended and from what I observed, it was all due to the long and pointed chin the guy has and the comfort it provides when he doesn’t have anything to reply to my sister’s blabbing. What are the chances it wouldn’t happen again with his Dominican? Not that I have anything against men with black complexion and polygenic inheritance itself, but I know my sister, she likes men who are doing pretty good in the looks department. Let’s see.. I probably got it from her.

Since they are more than sure that in the next seven months nothing, no one and no deity will stop them from “loving each other so much” (she said this herself), she finally made up her mind to lay out the details to my dad — the final gavel. My dad told her to have the guy e-mail him himself but the message got lost in translation from the English to the Deaf English; hence, she gave my dad the guy’s email. C’mon, who ever heard of a father getting on the good side of his daughter’s suitor? After the haggling between my parents and my sister that lasted for a day and a half, it has been settled that May should be mostly spent on them trying to know more of each other and the wedding being jostled to December of next year. Much much better, I say.

As they used to remark in Filipino soap operas, abangan ang susunod na kabanata.

PS: True story.

Three years agone, just when I hast germinated a deathless ardor for online games, my sister likewise exhibited fancy for chatting — the kind which involves web cams, chat rooms and equally lonesome people. And those with a lot of time to dispense either because they don’t have a job or they are not allowed to go out of their homes except when it is a Sunday, or both. My sister belongs to the last, possibly since she’s a deaf-mute but believe me, I decline to take it that way. The million dollar consequence of such set-up: the usual dispute about when someone should use and more importantly, who should use the PC, only to be terminated by my eldest sister’s claim of her throne. With the arrival of the laptop, things were worse the year after particularly due to the lack of a pacifier and my mom’s forthcoming menopause which tends to ramble on why we should sleep by 12 midnight on the dot. For information’s sake, I never complied.

I’d like to believe that the newest usage schedule we have developed for my semestral break caters us both the maximum utility. Zilch afternoon usage for Photoshop, for streaming videos related to Korean boy bands and whatnots, but with unparalleled assurance incurred from the fact that I won’t be taken out of my comfort zone from evening to morn. All these fell into place due to my sister’s newest boyfriend named Dagoberto. I know the name is completely unnecessary and should have been withheld, but really, I find it rare and.. funny. They just met a month ago and by now, it should have been rather obvious that this fateful meeting under the beaming sun (I’m trying to make it sound very fairytale-esque despite the prince charming’s impenetrable-sounding name), was all due to video chat rooms and the software called Camfrog. Is it me or IRL relationships don’t work for both of my older sisters? Anyway, more on that next week.

While on the threshold of dying of boredom brought forth by our family’s strict abidance to Sabbath that calls for a 24-hour no-PC no-outings break from Friday to Saturday, my sister resolved to be in good terms with me, at least for an hour. Frankly, it’s getting tiring to get into arguments with her just because I look stressed out and mad at something, which she immediately takes to be her. As the first step to reconciliation, we had a candid and casual talk. Fine, a heart-to-heart one. She told me she wanted a boyfriend and mind you, this happened before I saw her typing some lines like “I love you.” and “Dream of me.” and before she was forced to admit that she’s in a relationship because I told my mom what occurred before my two eyes. I’m a sumbungera, yes.

As an added insight to what kind of conversation ensued the next minutes, she also stated that Filipino men are dumb and stupid. She doesn’t want to fall for one anymore for they are like what she said… dumb, stupid and last but not the least, they suck at relationships. As much as I’d like to agree and uphold the superiority of the women race, I also beg to differ with that hasty generalization. I am lacking in sign language skills so I wasn’t able to say this to her: Foreigners are no different; they can be worse — much, much worse. In an international online game I used to play, a random chap asked for my nationality. I said “I am a Filipina”, and he immediately retorted, “A domestic helper?”. My ego received a 1000-hit combo and I am stopping now because I might fill this post with profanities. I hope my sister’s Dominican is not among the bad species of foreigners. As for me, I think I will be happy with a local man and a great deal happier with a Korean idol.

I wish you all the best, dearest sister.