Some brainfart musings

1. Is intelligence testing a useful method of measuring a person's potential for academic achievement?  I say that intelligence testing is still a useful method of measuring a person's potential for academic achievement. When it comes to the reliability of intelligence testing however, the concerns of Eric B, a Caucasian bilingual teacher at the  Escondido Unified School District who I carpooled with going to a hike at Three Sisters Waterfalls in Descanso  last February, echoes in my mind. Most of Mr. B's students are children of new immigrants from Mexico who have settled in eastern area of Escondido. Mr. B talked about his teaching strategies which to him worked but lamented the fact that his students did not do well in the in the  state standardized tests especially in language proficiencies. As a teacher, he had seen the progress of his students, progress that no standardized testing could measure.
2. If you were an employer would you prefer a highly motivated worker of average intelligence or a worker with average motivation and high intelligence?  Had my employer preferred applicants with high intelligence and average motivation five years ago, I would be out of work today. If I were an employer myself, I would take the cue from employer and would give a chance to highly motivated applicants even with borderline intelligence.
3. Which would you prefer for a romantic partner?  Duh
4. Which would you prefer to be--highly motivated or highly intelligent? I would prefer to be highly motivated but I wish I was highly intelligent.
5. Should colleges and universities base admissions more on SAT and ACT scores or high school grades and activities?  Ivy league schools should still base their admissions on SAT and ACT scores to maintain their status quo.  State universities could use some SAT scores but as they seem to be doing now requiring a higher GPA. Community colleges, on the other hand, should keep their doors open to the community for everyone wanting to learn, like what they are doing now.
6. Discuss the relative effects of motivation and intelligence on achievement. My goal is to finish the course with a grade that would help me  qualify  on a program I am waitlisted on. Given my previous scores on the chapter quizzes however, I am beginning to wonder if my brain is apt for the SQ3R technique that are supposed to improve my scores. I still have my motivation though.

Just another night shit with Die Vahkkendjaab

"Are you a nursing student?" Joyce Fulton asked.
"Nope."
"What are you studying?"
"Nothing."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy."
"I am fine."
I was working with Joyce, a registered nurse from the resource float pool for the first time. Joy probably got her RN degree through the Plus 50 Initiative. I could sense her interest. I just finished my activity record on Centricity and was browsing at the flash cards I have accessed through the Blackboard. Joyce was going back to her computer and probably got curious with what I was doing online other than working on my electronic documentations.
I have made friends with a few other resource float pool RNs. There's Beth Miller, who sang blues with an ETOH patient a few months ago, Eun Kim, Julie Cheng, and Florence Ebiya who I am always glad to see on the floor. The getting to know you working relationship phase with Joyce seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot.

Son of a Grasshopper

Should I leave the effing son a grasshopper alone?
The mother fire trucker son of gun has nothing to do with the effing  result of my chapter quiz on sensation and perception.
What part of his ear did Van Gogh cut?
So this is American college education is all about. But I am having the most fun on the Blackboard Learn
https://gcccd.blackboard.com/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_1_1

I would be most devastated with losing my vision too Eqbal. Now I know how it feels. I am so devastated with the results of the chapter quiz because I almost lost it. I am trying not to go insane though. But if I ever lose my vision, I would have to tell myself that it's not the end of the world. I probably would not  be a Helen Keller but  I would get by. There's my sense of touch, sense of smell  and I would definitely add in a sense of humor.

Of cross-eyed kittens and Anais Nin

Discussion board question number 2 is the more intriguing to me so let me go around the bush of my choice. I never heard about Anais Nin saying "We don't see the world as it is but as we are" before. About.com says that Anais Nin was a writer known for her published diaries. Like Anne Frank? Not really, she was born to Spanish-Cuban parents in France. Her name reminds me of Anais Anais which I pronounce as a neigh, a neigh, that characteristic high pitch sound uttered by a horse. The perfume, course! Was Anais Nin trying to tell her readers that they don't get it?
"Look guys, it's not what you think it is!"
I don't get it, either!
I could actually relate more with the Johari Window. Those windows tell a lot: tell what you see is what it is, what you didn't see, what nobody saw and who knows what nobody would ever see.

Thanks to cross-eyed kittens with lazy eyes, David Hubel and and Torsten Wiesel were able to study the effects of visual deprivation during the critical period for development of vision. Like half of the class who would be devastated to lose their vision, my sense of vision is the most important and would do everything to save it.

As for illusions, I understand illusions to be false perceptions. Like I have illusions of being so smart, then I talk smart when in reality, I really don't know what I am talking about.

A View to my Exotic Origins

I just finished a required reading in SOC 120, the article "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" by Horace Miner. The Nacirema people were a little-known tribe in the Antiles archipelago by the Caribbean Sea to the south and the Gulf of Mexico to the Northwest. I am glad the author did not call the Nacirema tribe Indians but instead  North American tribe. Nacirema is actually American read backwards.

I felt like I was reading an American anthropologist' perspective on a culture that could have been mine. I found the fascination of an outsider to a foreign culture more interesting that the bizarre practice of the Nacirema women he was describing where they bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour.

"What are your general thoughts on the article?" Ursula asks.
"The article seems to be about Americans. Nacirema backwards is American." Jessica Doyle points out.
I reply to Jessica Doyle's comment.
I seem to be getting your point, Jessica. The article is the simply the dyslexic way of looking at how Americans deal with their bodies.  In the article, I feel like I am simply reading an American anthropologist' perspective on a foreign culture. I find the fascination of an outsider such that of the author more interesting than the practices of Nacirema (read backwards as American) people. While the practices described seem primitive and exotic to the author, to me, these practices have their own modern counterparts. The holy mouth men are now called dentists and hygienists; the latipso is the medical examination room; and  the listener would be the modern day clinical  psychologists. Long before the invention of dental floss, there were hog hairs.

I stopped reading the article when the author pointed out "the gleam in the eye of a holy mouth man as he jabs around into the exposed nerve". Finding the Nacirema tribal practices having sadistic and masochistic tendencies seem to me an easy and unfair judgment made by an outsider to a foreign culture. In the US people would have tattoos, piercings and would go under the knife for anything: self-expression, to enhance their image or just to belong or be cool. Limiting intercourse to the phase of the moon is also nothing new to devout Catholics who would not go for artificial birth control because of the dictates of the holy men in the Catholic church. Catholics practice the natural family planning method, nothing lunar but close.

The article even if it could have just been a joke reminds me a book I recently read.  It is a book by a Japanese author, Koji Suzuki.  Paradise!

The author has no relations to the makers of Vitaras and Forenzas. In the only book of his that I have read so far, he weaved his story from the prehistoric distant lands where modern day Asians in America come from. I am quite familiar about legends when there were land bridges between islands  across the Pacific. I have read about Native  Americans coming all the way from Asia by the Bering Strait along the northern part of the  Pacific coast in a series of migrations. Suzuki is definitely referring to people from Mongolia, now a landlocked country in east and central Asia bordering Russia to the north and China to the south. Scholars dispute how long these people from Mongolia have been in North America . Some say 25, 000 years based on evidence while others counted less years and made it 12, 500 basing on their own evidences.

I take interest on migration patterns of Asians to North America

Eight Years Ago at the Brooklyn Borough Hall

RN gave me his right hand for me to put  the ring on. Ronald, the best man who was also the concierge at a building at Remsen St. looked on without saying a word.
"It's the left hand," Mary,  the officiating minister told RN.
"Sorry, I haven't done this for awhile!"

From Old School to the Web Classroom

 

I am officially an adult student. I opted for online classes with Sky as one of my professors. Doctor Sky is for real. She has a Ph. D in Psychology. I asked if Dr. Phil of the Dr. Phil Show if a pseudo psychologist. She says no, Dr. Phil of the Dr. Phil Show has a Ph. D in psychology, and a clinical psychologist. I stop and postpone being a smartass.                                                                                 

 

I borrowed the photo from Djeline. a friend from the old school. Djeline and I are among the few fishes from the old school who swim the cyber ocean alongside Dory and Marlin in finding Nemo.

"Which ass are you?"

I picked the first from the left.

"No you're more of the second from the right."

Smart ass. At least I am not an asshole.

 



 

 

 

 

 



Anak siya ng tipaklong...

Kilala ko siya noon pa man. Noon pa man, pesteng yawa na siya. Walang pinatawad, masiba sa lahat. Heto, nagkita ulit kami. Pinagmamasdan ko ang mga dahon ng Oro Blanco na replica ng  Oro Blanco ni  Vilma sa Phoenix. Unti-unting nauubos ang mga dahon pero wala akong nakikitang   caterpillar. Minsan, pinagmasdan kong maging isang paru-paro ang isang caterpillar na kinuha ko sa puno ng kalamansi. Naging cocoon at napisa bilang isang paru-paro. Pesteng yawa talaga. Anak ng tipaklong pala ang mga kumakain sa nga dahon ng Oro Blanco na replica sa Oro Blanco ni Vilma sa Phoenix.

Kung ikaw ba'y may pagkakataon mag-ibang anyo ng ilang sandali sa buhay mo. Magiging paru-paro ka ba o magiging tipaklong?

The Vagrants

The novel is about China by Yiyun Li. The story is set in the late 1970s when Beijing was rocked by the Democratic Wall Movement. The setting of the story reminds me of a patterns I am familiar with: rural to urban migration patterns in Third World, a world that will always be mine no matter where I am.

 

 

From vast farmlands owned by big landowners, tenants get to own a parcel. Small parcels of land are like plate waste from a landlord's dining table. Tenants migrate to urban areas or cities for better chances of livelihood such as some employment or other entrepreneurial activities. Livelihood options are based on one's own creativity and resilience.

 

The vagrants in the story are an older couple who subsist on scavenging and other odd jobs. The story depicts the time before China's one child policy where couples would not stop procreation until they have a son to carry the family's name. The story revolves on the characters of Nini, a crippled young girl; Bashi, an idle  son of a better off family; Old Hua and his wife; Teacher Gu and daughter Gu Shan; Tong, a boy who recently came to the city from the rural areas; and Kai, a radio announcer turned revolutionary.

 

Nini, born with deformities is the oldest of 6 daughters and tasked with child care responsibilities and doomed to be a spinster because no man would even consider her potential as a wife because of her ugliness. Her mother  who was  still trying for a son had at several times wished she'd thrown Nini as an infant because of her deformities and her gender. Old Hua's wife, who together with her husband, raised daughters they picked up from their scavenging, was kind to Nini finding treats for Nini who was always hungry. While Nini's parents worked, Nini was also tasked with preparing the family's meals. Bashi befriended Nini in the marketplace where Nini bought her families everyday needs.

Bashi, who was kind of a village bum or idiot was never taken seriously by potential parents-in laws. Bashi's friendliness to Nini soon became a mutual relationship unbeknownst to anyone. Teacher Gu who is aware that it was his daughter who caused the deformity of Nini was also kind to Nini.

 

As in any repressive societies, freedom of speech is curtailed. The story begins with an event, the execution of the daughter of Teacher Gu, once a revolutionary zealot who at 14 kicked Nini's mother who was eight months pregnant. Gu Shan was betrayed at 18 by her boyfriend who wanted a post in the army upon a remark she made. Her imprisonment led to her killing ten years after and tasked to cover the broadcast was Kai, once a classmate of Gu Shan and a wife of a distinguished man from a political family.  

Utong ng Kamote

Ika ni Djeline, utong sa Pangasinan ay talbos. Ang utong ng mga Tagalog naman ay malaki ng pinagkaiba sa utong ng mga Ilocano. Ang utong ng mga Bisaya ay ibang usapin din.

Ang ensaladang utong!
Ang kitang kitang utong!
Ang inadobong utong!
Utong, ingon nako, utong!

Ass my momma

If I am a drug junkie, I would take drug prescriptions as treats. The treats were courtesy of Dr. Namaste who thought I have asthma after putting her stethoscope on my chest while I did deep breaths.

I did not use the fluticasone nor the albuterol. Instead, I save them for the trails in the event that I get SOB. I may be a lazy ass slow Mofo but no ass my momma for me.

EUReKA!

I am watching the defunct TV series that lasted up to 5 seasons on Amazon instant video.

The origin of the word Eureka are the Greeks. They say heureka when they find it. I wonder what they say when lose it.
Fuck!
Nope, the British coined the word from an acronym. Fornication under consent of the king. Of course, it's the same king who lived at Fuckingham.
Sure, manure!
I first heard the phrase sure manure from then seven year-old Carlos. I said sure manure to Lev and I never forgot his reaction.
"Seriously?"
I felt like I was the shipment high in transit. Seriously!
"Pluck yew too!" It was adopted l'il brother again reacting when I titled my blog "go pluck yourself".
Pluck yew which became fuck you is flipping the bird to Ancient According to my friend Wiki, flipping the bird is a gesture that dates back to Ancient Greece. The gesture was known as katupugon, kata means downward and pugon means rump or buttocks.
Here's to fucking trees!

Priceless!

Makeup, $40
Tattoo, $400
Boob job, $4000

Forgetting to tuck in your nuts, PRICELESS!

The photo was posted privately as a joke by my once normal group. None of us would dare post the photo in our closed group so as not to offend anyone.

What's really PRICELESS! is the Supreme Court's ruling to strike down DOMA, the defense of marriage act. In 30 days, women can marry women and men can marry men. Of course, opposite sex can still marry.

I am not a dyke but I could have been. By a streak of luck, I was able to work my way out from the looming pattern of single blessedness.

So what the elf is single blessedness?

Single blessedness is a term I learned while wandering into Catholic religious formation. To Catholics, there are unmarried individuals who have answered the call. The call refers to the vocation to doing the will of God obediently and celibately. These unmarried Catholics go through rigorous training of praying for answers if they have been called by God to become priests and nuns.

Single blessedness is an option for those who do not become priests or nuns. Many are called but few are chosen, so the bible says.

And I say many are cold but few are frozen.

Good to the last drop

It's been a week in the clinic. Monday, I saw Dr. Shalauta, my primary care physician for my physical examination, a requirement to the telemetry program I am attending at Grossmont College this fall. I got referral for a mammogram and requested a breathing test because of being SOB on some hikes and colonoscopy for crapping too much as observed by my babe.
Yesterday, I did my breathing test at the scripps clinic in Rancho Bernardo. The respiratory care practitioner (RCP) made me think of blowing candles on a birthday cake. I didn't do much. I didn't care about birthday cakes. I had many missed moments for birthday cakes and candles that I didn't even want to think about them. The RCP changed the scenario and got me into a watermelon seeds spitting contest instead. I did better and scored. I learned from initial computer markings that albuterol does not increase my lung capacity. I will always be the SOB hiker else I condition myself if I want to be with life-long hikers. It was Vincent, Maritie's husband who agreed with me that I probably need more conditioning for moderate to strenuous hikes.
Today, early this morning at 4 am I got my babe drive me to urgent care at scripps clinic at Torrey Pines having coughed for the last two weeks. Urgent care early morning visitors consisted of a young woman, more on the overweight side and with sleeve tattoos complaining of pain on her nape. The screening nurse gave her hot packs. After the visit intakes, she went back to the couch where her husband was waiting and worked on her iPhone. An elderly lady accompanied by her son came after me. A man complaining of pain because of kidney stones also arrived and he was ushered into the clinic as soon as he came. Meanwhile, the lady with the sleeve tattoo left without being seen by a doctor and the elderly lady was ushered in first. I waited almost 2 hours before I was ushered inside the clinic by a dark haired middle-aged looking nurse named Samantha.
Richard joined me in the waiting room after I was seen by Dr. Kenneth Alan Schild, a proper-looking doctor who looked more like a college professor or a research scientist to me. Dr. Schild ordered x-rays for me: one for sinus and two for lungs, one frontal and another taken sideways.
Dr. Schild came back to the consultation room after about two hours with verdict. Pneumonia!
Huh?
The RN who came to discharge me wanted to make sure I was alive before she sends me home.
"So you don't send anyone home if they're dead?" My babe asked the RN.
Dr. Schild sent me home with doxycycline and Iophen C NR liquid. Its codeine phosphate with guaifenesin, a cough syrup with codeine. CVS pharmacy gave a medicine dropper for the narcotic relief cough syrup. To urgent care early morning visitors like the guy writhing in pain for kidney stones, narcotic relief is a treat. My babe saw him leaving the clinic happy and relieved and happy after only about an hour of visit.
I am sure the Iophen C NR will be good to the last drop since there are no refills for narcotic relief.

Some Falcon Nights

The night before, CC was in my hotlist. It was my second night in a row with her. Although she treated me like her paid maid, she was at least nice to me. The night before, ML approached me if he can switch with me the his hotlist. I said no in a definite tone. Later, MJ approached me asking if I could have CC from ML's hotlist. CC, a week before had screamed at ML to get out of her room. CC complained ML was wearing a very strong cologne. I agreed to MJ that I would take CC into my list.
"I was asking you nice", ML said to me. I always find ML too condescending.
"What do you mean by asking me nice?" I am sure he meant about my refusing to switch with him his entire load at the west wing. The last time he asked about switching, I wanted his entire hotlist load, not just CC who had screamed at him to get out of her room.
"The last time, you wanted to switch with me my entire hotlist." I knew why he wanted to switch with me his entire hotlist. The west wing is usually the heaviest hotlist. The first time he approached about switching loads, he said that he had my load the previous night and if he could have it.
Last night's hotlist started out quite smoothly. TG had me give WF some oatmeal and shave RB. WF and RB were two from TG's hotlist. Opportunities of completing tasks endorsed by the day shift somehow gives me satisfaction. WF's daughter thanked me profusely and RB was so happy about his smooth shaved face.
CC was happy to have me again as her maid. I kind of like the new designation for our role on the white board in hotlist rooms: Nurse Partner! Of course, we would always be the aide. A lot of the Filipino nurses refer to us as their aide. I wish I can tell them that I am not there as their aide. I am there for the patients. I always introduce myself to a patient as someone who who would be working with their nurses for the night.
I was by the front desk when AC asked PB the NL for the night if she (AV) was getting another admission. It seemed that AV and DH switched a patient. If AV was getting another admission, she would have 11 in her hotlist. I think AV was trying to explain to PB that DH should have the next admission since AV had one of DH's initial patient because of the switch.
PB told AV that AV and DH should arrange things among themselves. AV tried to explain about the switching to PB. I happen to be by the nurse station getting some forms for strict intakes and outputs and I could not help over hearing the conversation. I heard the words "complain" and "sarcastic" from PB.
I later found AV at the nutrition room and she was very upset.
PB is my friend off the floor and I thought if it had been me clarifying with her about hotlist loads, she could have a more harmonious response. Of course I felt for AV.
Some falcon nights end well. I went home wondering if I'd be written up.
I was finishing up my documentation at 0700. I am sure I heard RT telling JB that SP was continent. SP came from a procedure before midnight and RT was with her the whole time. At one time, RT put SP on a bedpan and I was the one who retrieved the bedpan. At about half an hour past midnight, RT asked me to go to the laboratory to get the blood for transfusion to SP. RT monitored SP's vital signs during the blood transfusion.
In between attending to LM who also came to the floor during the night, I was also attending to WF at the south wing who kept sitting up in bed setting the bed alarm. SV told me later that she gave WF seroquel and she would be okay for awhile. SV called me later to help WF into the commode and we both changed WF's sheets. WF went back to sleep before I could put a brief on her.
I went home thinking of SP's incontinence and wondering what else I could have missed. There are RNs who really take charge in their patients' care. They check their patients' skin at the start of the shift. They know their patients more than their partners. There is team work. They acknowledge their partners' efforts. Those nights are better.
Last night was one of those falcon nights.

Acceptable Risk

The title of the book by Robin Cook, copyright  1994 and freebie from PQ library. The story started with the Salem, Massachusetts witchcraft trials. In real history, the Salem witch trials were a series of  hearings and executions of people accused with witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. The timeline started in 1692 when 9 year old Betty Parris and her cousin Abigail Williams began to have grand mal seizures. People, mostly women were arrested and executed by hanging.

In Robin Cook's story, the main character based on the Salem witch trial history is Elizabeth Stewart, a farmer's daughter who became a merchant's wife. The setting is 17th century when women were primarily left at home to raise a family. As a farmer's daughter, Elizabeth was keen to using local farm products to help farmers. Rye was among the local products which Elizabeth wanted to promote. Aside from using local products such as rye, Elizabeth was also a prominent women leader in the community managing her household, acting in behalf of her husband in business transactions such as buying and acquiring properties and feeding orphans. A visit by the nosy doctor's wife one day while Elizabeth multi tasked with baking rye bread, feeding orphans and sending them the freshly baked rye bread and telling the doctor's wife of her beliefs and revealing some practice of black magic such as a pin cushion human figure resembling the local doctor with a needle in his heart. Suddenly, the doctor's wife witnessed seizures that in the olden times were considered as being possessed by the devil. Elizabeth along with other women were put to trial for witchcraft. Despite of his husband's money and influence, Elizabeth was executed in the gallows.
Kimberly Stewart is a present day generation of Elizabeth Stewart.

A taste of Leonardo da Veggie

The name sounded a bit gay but I still went for Leonardo, out of curiousity. Light garlic herbal cream cheese, pickled red pepper and Muenster cheese.

Lao Tzu becomes Holy Shih Tzu

When I found this smiling monk in Baguio, I was not even thinking that a journey to a thousand miles begins with a single step. That Lao Tzu said so. Back then I was more concerned with Lao Tzu's idea of teaching men how to fish so they  can eat fish everyday for a lifetime. I never got to read the article I submitted to the ILS digest about Lao Tzu since by the time the article got published, I was already wandering in America with Lao Tzu in my pocket.

I named the smiling monk carved from acasia wood I found in Baguio Lao Tzu. Lao in Mandarin could be old and Tzu means master.  I am good at name-calling but I did not have the heart to call him Pha Khin What or Pha Khin Who because Lao Tzu is not just any Pha Khin Thing to me, he is the Old Master.  I was sort of revering the Holy Shit!

Lao Tzu becomes Holy Shih Tzu.

Maybe in two weeks, when the new Holy See has been selected, I will revert him to Lao Tzu. He is not even a dog.  Shit happens*, this is what this post is all about!

Footnotes:

*Shit happens in the urban dictionary means universal religious concept, dickhead!

Life goes on

Living and working as a plucked one is a moving on process. Now that I know how to make trail ducks, I will keep making them. Since I have failed as much challenge as I have ventured into, I will keep on and keep trying.

I wish I had the serenity of my late friend Priscilla who lived on a borrowed heart for about eighteen years. We talked about the desert and the desert flowers that abound in spring. It's almost spring and I promised to myself to go back to more than blogging whether I fucked up another attempt to   climb a mountain that would let me soar a little more. I promised myself to work on my humility virtue with my self-esteem intact and strong no matter what. (Look, I am posting this blog for myself and if anyone ever reads this, don't ask me to explain.)

Le Imbecile watches Les Miserables

I was warned that the cinema would be 90 percent full and I may have to sit at the very front row looking up to the big screen for the entire duration of the movie. I told the lady at the ticket booth that I did not mind sitting in the very front row of the cinema. I figured that by the time I'd get in the cinema, the "go big or go home" warning to moviegoers would already have been shown. So I bought a ticket for the 7:00PM screening. I will be watching alone since RN and Karlee decided to go home instead of watching the movie with me after not being able to find a pha khin parking lot close to the cinema. I have always wanted to go big.

A man was swimming with a limp body of a man out of the sewage. He was being pursued by a man in uniform who looked like the actor who played a schizophrenic in an older movie, The Beautiful Mind. The movie was obviously on its climax. I felt like a lost idiot entering the wrong cinema. I entered the cinema that started at 5:15PM. Moviegoers watching Les Miserables did not know that Le Imbecile was watching the end part of the movie with them. It was 7:20 and the movie would end in half an hour. Anne Hathaway looked shockingly anorexic singing "I dreamed a dream". I could not imagine Susan Boyle playing Fantine and singing the same song at West End in London where I took the billboard photo when Aunt Pauline and two cousins strolled by Soho District almost two years ago.

I did at one point consider someday watching Les Miserables at West End in London into my bucket list. Chris Cruz made it sound so big watching the musicale in London that I got inspired. I did wish to go back to London and see Soho District once again.

I wondered if that was really Anne Hathaway singing. The big kid confirmed it really was Anne Hathaway singing. Not bad for someone who played bastard princess in Princess Diaries. I don't remember Russel Crowe singing anything. All I thought of during the movie was schizophrenic character he played. I was even relieved when he jumped into his death as Inspector Javert. I loved the young Cosette. I love how her face was captured to replicate the portrait of Cosette by Emelie Bayard from the original edition of Les Miserables in 1862. The portrait reminds me of a photo taken by Lev Alcantara of a girl child laborer in Silay City in Negros Occidental some years ago. The older Cosette would always be the girl at Dear John to me. Beautiful, virginal and somewhat obsolete. I'd rather see women portrayed as strong and unconventional. Just like Eponine. In the story, Eponine was so enamored to Marius who on the other hand is so enamored with Cosette. Eponine took part in the revolution kind of disguising as a male just to be close to Marius. I did not like that enamored stalking part of the character. It's the trouser and cap-wearing part that I really like.

One of my first kindle downloads is the Les Miserables. I have always gotten interested with stories beginning with someone being imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread but I never got past the preface of the story. I find the book so damn difficult to read. It's like the Holy Bible and Glorious Koran combined.