8 posts tagged “letter a week”

I'm terribly behind on this, I know. I need to catch up, which means I still owe "I" and "J" this week in order to be current. But I have to confess that it took me a while to decide on what "H" stood for. But, this morning it finally hit me.

H is for Hair.

I used to have really short hair. And then I had really long hair. And then I cut it really short, but I looked like a boy and I vowed not to cut it that short ever again. And I grew it out. And I got sick of it and cut it short again, but not a pixie cut like the last time. And it got longer and shorter and longer and shorter...

I have mixed feelings about my hair. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I absolutely love it, and sometimes I can't stand it. When it doesn't cooperate, as it hasn't been for the past, oh, 11 months, I want nothing more than to shave it all off. Sadly, I'm not entirely convinced that I have an appropriately shaped skull for the Sinead O'Connor look, so that's really not an option.

And then I look at pictures of myself back in the day (pick a day, there are so many now) with cute hair (sometimes long, sometimes shorter, sometimes with bangs, sometimes without), and I think, "Oh, I want my hair like that!", forgetting, of course, that I had just as many days when my hair was like that when I wanted to shave my head.

Which brings me to today and why I decided that H was for Hair.

Today is a better hair day than it's been for a while. My post-baby hair is starting to grow in now, and the only place it looks very awkward is by my ears. These stray hairs are the reason God created bobby pins, I know. It now rests just below my shoulders and can officially be considered "medium-length", but it's still too short to put all of it into a high ponytail (there are lots of stray hairs that fall at the back).

When I was living in LA, long hair worked pretty well for me. I'm not entirely sure how, though, now that I think about it. I mean, I went to school throughout high school with my hair mostly down (usually pulled back with a single barette), and it didn't bother me all that much. Of course, the heat there is a dry kind of heat, but it was still hot for most of the year.

Here in Florida, the heat is rarely dry. In fact, it's usually quite sticky. But since I work indoors and rarely venture outside my office (except to get into my car, which I only leave long enough to get to the next air-conditioned building), I can't really use that as an excuse. So, I'm guessing that my willingness to put up with long hair really has nothing to do with temperature. After all, I let my hair grow really long just after I moved here.

I had to miss my last hair appointment because I suddenly needed to leave the country, but the next time I go, I think I'll ask Cathy to keep the length and just trim the ends a bit - enough to keep them healthy. And I'll try my hand again at growing out my hair. Everyone at work is cutting their hair very short, and I think I want to buck this trend.

For some weird reason, I really miss my long hair.

Really, it ought to be under D for Directionally Challenged, but I think Geographic Ineptitude works well, too.

Yes, I confess - I am one of those who can't find her way out of a paper bag. My car even has a built-in compass, so you'd think I would have a better notion of where I am and where I am going. Sadly, this is not the case. If the compass says I'm heading west and I know I need to go south, I have to visualize a compass rose and turn it accordingly so that I know which direction to turn. It's really pathetic.

It wasn't until I had been driving for a while that it finally occured to me that Ventura Boulevard was the southernmost major road in the Valley. Therefore, if I needed to go south, I would head toward Ventura. If I need to head north, I would head away from Ventura. West, I knew, was towards Topanga Canyon and the Woodland Hills area. East, then, was North Hollywood and Studio City. (I grew up in Van Nuys, the absolute center of the Valley.)

Once I left the Valley, the mountains and the ocean were my landmarks. Need to go east? Head for the foothills. Going west? Turn toward the ocean. (Driving at night? Um... Find a freeway.)

Of course, now that I live in Central Florida, I have neither mountains nor ocean to serve as landmarks. There are no mountains to be had for love or money, and this state is a peninsula, so driving until I reach the ocean doesn't hold the same directional meaning as it once did.

Moreover, Interstate 4 is supposed to go from east to west (as all even-numbered freeways should). And it does... for the most part. It really goes southwest to northeast, and that seriously throws me off when someone says that Tampa is southwest of Orlando... which it is, but the south part doesn't register because I can get there just by hopping on the 4 Freeway.

(For those playing along at home, Interstate 4 also isn't a true interstate. It will take you from Tampa to Daytona, but it will not get you to another state. Much like the Interstates in Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico, only those aren't called I-something like Interstate 4 is.)

Anyway, I will need to brush up on critically study my Florida geography before Baby C is old enough to ask me where someplace is relative to our house. Thank goodness I've got a little more time.

Friends.

This one required absolutely no thought, considering the events of the past few weeks. But I'd like to discuss a specific group of friends through this post.

I didn't pick my childhood friends. No, I really didn't. My parents chose them for my sister and me. You see, my parents immigrated to the United States in 1972 when my sister was still a toddler, and they knew very few people. My father's brother (one of four) was in the country, but they didn't really know anyone else.

If you're at all familiar with the Filipino culture, you will understand how difficult it is to be away from family. The Filipino culture is very matriarchal - the maternal figure, after all, gives life, nourishment, and comfort. These days, the tide might be changing and slowly shifting to a more patriarchal structure due in large part to the American colonization occupation influences in the country. But I digress.

Family is an important part of Filipino life. My cousins in the Philippines live very close in proximity to each other, and their children see each other frequently, if not almost daily. So I can only imagine how difficult it was for someone like my mother who, coming from a large family of her own, wouldn't have the built-in support network that she might have expected. I can't begin to imagine how lonely she and my father must have been those first few months.

The Christmas of 1972, my father sent out Christmas cards to everyone he knew from the Philippines who had moved to the United States. One morning, the phone rang while my father was at work, and my mother answered it. The man on the other line said he used to work with my father at San Miguel in the Philippines. My mother asked if he was Levy, whom he was, and spoke with him at length. He indicated that he received my father's Christmas card and asked where they lived.

The following day, Levy brought his wife and daughter to my parents' apartment visited with my mother and sister while waiting for my father to return home from work. (I think my mom said he drove all the way from Covina to Hollywood.) From that day forward, Cherry's family was forever linked with mine.

Another former San Miguel coworker was a close friend of my father's and was my sister's Ninong. My parents left the Philippines before he and his family immigrated. When Ninong Rey came to the country, he (and Tito Boy) stayed with my parents for a little while before moving into an apartment in the same building. My father was so happy to have close friends nearby, and before long, Ninong Rey's wife and two daughters were able to join him. Freni and Faye, the two girls, were close to my sister's age, and the three of them often played together. (Tito Boy's wife and daughters immigrated, as well, but my sister wasn't as willing to share her toys with his daughters. Neither was my mom overly fond of his wife. But again, I digress.)

Years passed. I was born in 1975 and met Cherry a few days after coming home from the hospital, then met Freni and Faye not long after that. A couple of years later, old college classmates of my parents' moved to the United States with two daughters of their own: Melissa and Mylah. Melissa was about the same age as my sister, and Mylah was about 16 months older than I was. The whole family was immediately welcomed into the circle, and we seven girls saw each other almost every weekend.

Cherry was the one who first showed me the video for Dexy's Midnight Runners' song and introduced all of us to the Go-Go's (not personally - just their music). Mylah introduced me to the Smiths and other complaint rock. From Melissa I gained an appreciation for Adam Ant and Prince. Freni loved Hall and Oates and Wham! - especially George Michael. Faye used to make fun of her sister (wait - she still does), and I was always in awe of her because she was the younger sister who told her bigger sister what to do!

Cherry, Faye and Mylah were all bridesmaids in my wedding. My sister was Matron-of-Honor, so all four families were represented beside me. I think the last time the seven of us saw each other, though, was my sister's 1996 wedding. Even then, though, not all the parents were there. I honestly don't remember when the four complete families were last together. That might have been Thanksgiving of 1991, when Cherry was pregnant and all the girls but I were in college.

A few months after my wedding, Ninong Rey passed. All four families were, again, represented, but not all of us were able to be there at the same time. One of the saddest images in my mind is that of my father, Tito Levy, and Tito Willy (Melissa and Mylah's dad) hovering over Ninong Rey's casket - the four of them together for the very last time. They were inseparable when we were all younger. They played bridge together, went fishing together, went camping together (with the whole family in tow), and were just inseparable. Seeing the four of them together for the last time was very sobering, and I wept while my mother patted my shoulder.

The day we learned of Mom's death, Ethylene and I met at LAX where we would later board a plane bound for Manila. As soon as they heard the news, Freni, Cherry, and Faye made immediate plans to meet us at the airport for dinner. There was absolutely no question - Cherry left work early and drove up from Orange County, Faye left her 3-week-old son with her mom, and Freni rushed to the airport from work. And the five of us sat at the airport together, each of us grateful for the bond we have. (Mylah was in Buenos Aires, or I'm sure she would have joined us, too, and Melissa lives too far north to join us at a moment's notice.)

For a very long time, my parents didn't have their families here in the United States. But even when uncles, aunts and cousins came to the country and lived in close proximity, I never felt the connection with these blood relatives that I did with my adopted extended family. Because that's what our four families became: one big extended family. We attended each other's graduations (or, at the very least, the parties) - and we had at least one graduation every year from 1983 until 1996. We went camping together. We accompanied our fathers to San Pedro when they went fishing. We played badminton at Cherry's house and spent Thanksgiving afternoons together watching The Twilight Zone marathons. Although I knew I really only have one sister, at times it felt like I had six. And when Ninong Rey died, it felt like I had lost a parent, too.

I think of all the gifts my parents have given me, the best gift was probably my sister (though she was technically here first). But a very close second would have to be my childhood friends. I didn't pick them; my parents did. And though I'm sure there were plenty of times I didn't really want to hang out with them, I'm glad our dads had an ongoing bridge game.

At times like these, I'm very thankful for this specific group of friends. They are all amazing, intelligent and beautiful women - and I can't begin to imagine how much heavier my heart would be right now if they weren't all there to help shoulder some of the pain.

Okay, this one was an easy one. The topic, though, will not be about all things Eileen (as that's the purpose of my entire blog), but specifically about my name.

I came very close to being named "Elaine", which is odd, because so many people call me that, anyway. Oh, it's amusing. I've been called "Elaine", "Ellen", "Irene" (even people reading my name will say that - I don't get it), or, even better, "Amy". (Eileen, Amy... sure - they sound exactly the same!) Anyway, my mother worked with a woman named Elaine whom she didn't like very much, so I became Eileen.

When I was younger, there were lots of other names that I would have preferred. After all, all the cool girls had names that ended with "a" or "y" (or "i", since it was the Valley in the '80s). There was Serrina, Andrea, Jessica, Becca, Erica, Samantha, Claudia... you get the picture. And there was Kathy, Emily, Jenni, Staycee, Charlie, Tiffany, Lani, Valerie... I could go on for days.

And then Dexy's Midnight Runners had their big hit.

You know which song I mean. And it's probably going to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

It wasn't until years later that I fully embraced the song, and took great pleasure in the fact that the song had my name in it. After all, one of the best lines that could ever be said about someone is in that song: "At this moment, you mean everything". How can you possibly not believe it when you hear it in the song (and have been reminded via serenading multiple times a month since you were 7) several times? No wonder I have a big head!

So, that's the story of my name. I was spared being named after a chemical (my poor sister has that misfortune) and didn't get named after a coworker that my mother didn't like. Which, honestly, is just as well. I had plenty of time to rebel against and ultimately adjust to "Come On, Eileen" before adolescence and adulthood.

Could you imagine my hell if I shared a name with a Seinfeld character?

It really ought to be for Delinquent or "Doh!", as I neglected to write this post last week. I will catch up this week, though. The big conference is today and, as I've arrived at work a little late, I've decided to skip the 2007 recap of the live conference feed and do a little work goofing off until the segments I need to watch begin (which won't start until 11:30).

Anyway, one of my favorite roles is that of Daughter. It's an easy role, and one I've played my whole life. Did I always like this role? No, not particularly, especially since it meant having to heed the parental figures who bestowed this title upon me. But, the older I get, the more I like the role.

I have very good relationships with both of my parents. Now, I still think they have a tendency to want to shield me from the harsh realities of life a little too much, but they're parents and that's something that they're going to want to do the rest of their lives. But I can sit on the phone for hours with either of them, just talking about whatever, which is something that I think is pretty amazing but odd at the same time.

When I learned I was pregnant, it actually only marginally occured to me that I might have a daughter of my own. For some odd reason, I was just certain that this would be a little boy. Once the food aversions kicked in and the mere thought of chocolate was enough to make me shudder, I was certain I was carrying a boy. After all, no girl would ever ever deny her mother chocolate. Am I wrong?

But even before I was pregnant - in fact, long before I was married - I somehow knew that I probably wouldn't have a daughter. I'm too prepared to have a daughter, or, at least, I'm more prepared with how to deal with a girl and her future adolescent issues than that of a son. I did, after all, keep all of my high school journals to serve as a future reminder of what a pill I was - and to remind myself that I, too, felt no one in the universe could possibly know what it was that I was feeling because no one could possibly have ever been there.

I would love to have another child in a year or two, so maybe one day Baby C will have a sibling, and that sibling might be a girl. There's always that chance that Baby C will remain an only child and never know what it's like to have a brother or sister. But watching my two neices grow up (J is 6 going on 7 and M is 4 going on 15), I resist the urge to ask my sister how she manages to raise these two very intelligent but extremely headstrong girls.

That's when I send up a silent prayer of thanks for my son. For as much as I enjoy my own role of Daughter, I don't know how I would fare as the mother of one.

I'm going to do my best to specifically write about myself when I do my Letter a Week posts. I've found that I write way too much about my son and motherhood and not nearly enough about myself.

So this leads us to this week's letter: C.

There are so many things I could have chosen for this letter. My husband's first name starts with C. My son's name starts with C. My maiden name starts with C. My married name starts with C. And one of my favorite foods in the whole wide world (cookies) starts with C. Wait. So does creme brulee. And cheesecake. And chips! Hmmm...

Okay, I'm getting off subject.

My parents are two incredibly intelligent people who wanted my sister and me to be the very best at whatever it was we chose to do. They are supportive, loving, generous, and were, at times, demanding. Actually, I don't think I would say that they were demanding. I would say that they had incredibly high expectations of us, and we were heavily encouraged to live up to these expectations.

I hated getting report cards in school. Not because I ever had really bad grades (I graduated from high school with a respectable 3.5 GPA), but because I felt so much pressure. My sister, you have to understand, was is the perfect daughter in many ways. I won't go into her current life, but I can touch upon history. She graduated from elementary school as the class valedictorian, and if it weren't for one guy in her graduating class at our alma mater (which also begins with a 'C'!), she would have graduated from junior high and high school as the valedictorian, as well. I think she only got one B on a report card, and I clearly remember my parents flipping out. It wasn't even a semesteral report card (the ones that count), but one of the progress reports.

But, again, I digress.

I love to read. And I'm a fairly smart person. I also loved being the center of attention and was the family Drama Queen until my older niece usurped my title several years ago. But I simply lacked the long-term commitment to focus on one thing and do that one thing very well.

So, I got a few Cs on my progress reports, which is why I always hated bringing them home. My father used to tell me that the only acceptable Cs on my report card were in my name, and that there should only be those two on any report card, semesteral or otherwise. After all, "A 'C' is a body of water - it's not a grade!"

Ironically, I always got Cs in math and science. It's the strangest thing. When I entered seventh grade, my entrance exam scores were so high that the administration placed me in an advanced math class. It didn't click until eight grade when I got a good math teacher, but once I went to high school (and had crappy math teachers), it all went downhill. Science was very similar. I think if someone had explained that an understanding of chemistry was necessary to understand baking, it would have clicked sooner. But I had this weird mental block. Even weirder was that I was almost always selected to represent the school at some scientific festival of some sort. I went to some Amateur Radio Convention thing my senior year as a representative of the Physics Club - and I wasn't even in the Physics Club!

So, I grew up believing that Cs are bad grades. It's not a bad belief, if you think about it. I mean, getting a C means that your performance in the class or on a project or on a paper is average. And, really, who truly wants to be average?

Am I going to instill in my own son this same notion that Cs are unacceptable? Possibly. Oh, fine - probably. After all, it was that kind of disdain for Cs as grades that led to one of my mantras: "Good enough isn't." No one looks at your report card once you enter the real world. Nobody cares if you graduated with a 4.0 from college or a 2.5, as long as you graduated and have some experience and smarts to back up that diploma. But the desire to push yourself beyond average, to never settle for "okay" - that's something cultivated over years of striving for that perfect score.

I love books. I've been a voracious reader for as long as I can remember. In fact, I don't remember what it was like to be unable to read. When I was four years old, I got called into the principal's office to take a test and see if I was ready to be moved into Kindergarten a year before my peers. I remember the person pointing to different letters and asking me to read sentences aloud. Apparently, I did well because I started Kindergarten across the street the following year (and, according to my mother, screamed and cried the entire first week, until I realized that she wasn't going to take me back to the preschool).

My mom used to buy books for me in attempts to keep me occupied. The summer after third grade, I stayed at home while my parents worked and my sister was in New York (her sixth-grade graduation present and congratulatory gift for being valedictorian). I'm sure someone was there with me, but I can't remember now. Anyway, that summer, she brought home three books for me, thinking they would keep me entertained for a few days. Boy, was she ever wrong. I finished them within a few hours, and my mom got so frustrated. The problem, of course, was that I was notoriously bad at returning library books, so it almost always cost more to just buy the book than to borrow it from the library.

Nowadays, I still love books. If you look on my Amazon wish list, just about everything on there is a book. Of course, I don't have the time to read books like I did when I was younger, but I still like having the options of reading them, in hopes that I will one day catch a break. After all, Baby C was kind enough to let me read Book 7 of the Harry Potter series in one day, so it's not like it's an impossible feat.

Books are a major downfall for me. I'm much better than I used to be; I've probably donated or gifted a few hundred dollars worth of books since moving to Florida - and I know I have so many more in storage back home. Baby C has a lot of books now, too, many from his father's childhood library and quite a few from his cousins' libraries. Right now he likes to eat the books more than listen to the stories, though he's somewhat interested in certain pictures. I can only hope that he will enjoy books as much as I did when I was a child.

Jennifer did attempted to do a Letter a Day, and since I know that there are going to be days when I'll fall off the wagon and not show up to write, I figured I would make it a Letter a Week instead. The basic premise of this is to write about something each week that is meaningful to me and also begins with the letter of the week. I figure, with 52 weeks in the year and 26 letters in the alphabet, this will get me to mid-year (at which point I will need to revisit my resolutions and see what I've accomplished, what is a work in progress, and what I truly have not begun). It also means I have an entire week to post about my letter, so I really have no excuse.

So, to begin, A is for Analyst.

This is my title at work. It's funny; prior to working here, my job was my identity. The best thing about working for such an irreverent company is that we're encouraged to be ourselves, which is to say that my identity is no longer wrapped up in what I do. Now I can be me, or, at least, now I can figure out who that is.

[sigh]

If you told me 15 years ago that I would be an analyst, I would have laughed my head off and dismissed it outright. After all, there's absolutely no creativity in analysis, right? And it would require constantly working with numbers (which I loathed) - and there was absolutely no way I would ever be able to figure out Excel. I mean, spreadsheets were created for number crunchers and geeks!

Fast-forward past my undergrad years and my MBA, and here I am: an analyst - and a very happy one. The nice thing about working with numbers now is that I'm not dealing with things like logarithms (why did I need to use those, anyway?). Instead, I use things I understand: basic algebra, percentages, and simple arithmetic. Plus, Excel does everything for me, so I just have to look at the numbers and be able to provide possible explanations for one number being much higher or lower than another.

And I make pretty charts and graphs each week.

Who said analysis isn't creative?