Clubbing in Columbia

One fun thing about being a student again is going out with girlfriends and dancing the whole night till my weary knees give out. I've been going out with other international students- Felicity (South Africa), Maria Ines (Peru), Anahit (Armenia), and Biljana (Serbia). Columbia is a small city, but it has its fair share of clubs and bars because it's a university town. Also, because they cater a lot to students, these bars have great deals on drinks as long as you have your student ID. If you want to get drunk, Deja Vu is good on Thursdays, where you drink all you can for $5, and Fieldhouse is good on Fridays, where you can drink all you can for $10. It's a bit more expensive; then again, more people are out and about on Friday night. Even if you don't want to get drunk, these places and some others are great if you just want to go dancing.

It's also fun for me to watch the social scene in the American midwest. One thing I've noticed in all the clubs I've been in is that the men I've seen so far fit the stereotype about dancing guys. And that's "white men can't dance". I observed that the only guys who knew how to dance were either black or Mexican. I guess like almost all stereotypes, there's a grain of truth in this one. I had a momentary internal struggle, as I tried to decide if I was being racist for being particularly thrilled when a black guy told me I was a good dancer. Such thoughts I ponder on the dance floor.

More unsettling thoughts occur to me when they play '80s music. I've heard Madonna's "Like a Prayer", Prince's "Kiss", and Michael Jackson's "Beat It". It was funny to see university students singing along to these now-classics. I thought I was probably the only one in the club who had danced to those songs when they were actually still HITS. It was easy enough to blend into the young crowd, but that's only because I concentrated on stopping myself from doing the Moonwalk.

The Thoroughly Un-Modern Woman

I watched Thoroughly Modern Millie last night with high expectations. After all, it had won six Tony Awards including Best Musical in 2002. The story (set in the roaring '20s) goes like this- Millie is a girl from Kansas who wants to try her luck in New York City. Her main stratagem to achieve success in the Big Apple is to find a job and marry the boss. But then she falls in love with a "poor" man. She decides to discard her plan to marry for money and chooses to marry for love instead. Voila! The "poor" man turns out to be a millionaire (and indirectly, still her boss)! So Millie leaves her secretarial job (which she was very good at, by the way) to marry her Prince Charming.

Despite the musical's title, Millie turned out to be a very old-fashioned girl whose purpose in life was to get a man to provide for her. Aside from the gender sterotypes, I didn't like the cultural stereotypes either. There was a subplot involving some Chinese men which is too complicated to explain. I was dismayed to see them portrayed as poor men (speaking in very broken English, of course) who were doing all they could to rescue their mother from her miserable life in Hong Kong by getting her to the US.

I know that this musical is set in the 1920s, but all those stereotypes continue to exist up to now. With the help of productions like this, I'm sure they will be around for a long, long time.

Finally Cooking

Back home, I used to tell everyone that I cooked well. I based this statement solely on my experience when I was still in high school (quite some time ago), as a summer time cook in the house when the household help took their summer leave. Of course, since I never really got around to cooking again since that time in the slightly distant past, my current friends never believed me. Even my siblings seemed to have forgotten that I was the family cook for a while. They say that maybe the experience was so traumatic for them that they blocked it from their collective memory. Ha!

Well, circumstances have forced me to be re-acquainted with my (alleged) inner cook. It is just too expensive to eat out everyday in the US, which is what I did back home. So after eating mostly sandwiches and salads for a few months, I've actually prepared meals that involved a pan and cooking oil. And I am happy to say that I actually believe my own story now. Right now though, I've convinced only myself. One day I might actually have other people taste my cooking and live to tell the tale.

New Year's Resolutions

In true procrastinating fashion, I have come up with a list of my New Year's resolutions on the first day of February. I have always made a list of resolutions when a new year comes around, and these lists are often long; too long to be realistic. So this year, in the interest of keeping things real, I have made the list very short.

1. Lose weight. (this one is consistently number one on my list)
2. Manage time better.
3. Speak up in class more.

There. Short and relatively painless.

Why Some Parties Suck

I've been to some parties here (the drinking kind), and unfortunately, I didn't always have a rip-roaring good time. I thought about it a bit, and I have realized why this was so. There were two reasons I could pinpoint.

1. These parties took BYOB too literally. In the Philippines, even at a potluck party, everyone shared what everyone else brought. (Though usually, whoever threw the party was expected to provide endless liquor, and alcohol brought by guests was both optional and a surplus). Here, you brought bottles of whatever you want to drink, and that's pretty much ALL you drink. You drink only what you bring. Such an alien concept.

2. There was no food. How can you drink without "pulutan" (appetizers/fingerfood) to munch on? Unthinkable in my country.

Which brings me to what constitutes a great party. Lots of alcohol, and lots of food. Even if the company is terrible and the music lousy, with enough drinks in your system and good food to binge on, you can't help but have a great time.

My Anti-Stress Snack

I've only been back in school for three days but I'm already overwhelmed by all the academic requirements I have to fulfill. I have twelve units/hours of classes this semester, compared to only nine last fall. I also have to log in around eight hours a week at the school's radio and tv stations and newspaper. I've started to be stressed, and I've responded to the stress as I always have- by eating. Since my allowance doesn't go all that far, I've discovered a snack I could make using ingredients I already have. So, when I feel like stress eating, I simply combine, in random amounts, some cereal (something like honey bunches of oats), peanut butter, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup. I mix them in a cup, and I'm all set. (Actually, I've started eating this for breakfast too. And lunch, sometimes.)

Back in Missouri

After travelling 14 and 1/2 hours from California, I'm back in Columbia. I actually arrived yesterday afternoon, but the long trip was so exhausting I haven't been able to do anything yet, including unpacking. I felt like I came from the Philippines, because of the trip's length. It's a good thing the sun was out when I got back to Missouri and it's relatively warm; otherwise I'd be feeling the post-vacation crash more acutely. I'm going back to school on Tuesday to start the winter semester; there's no class on Monday thanks to Martin Luther King day. That gives me one more day to get off slacker mode (quite a challenge).