LGBT Pride Month

The month of June was chosen for LGBT Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall Riots in June 1969. Let's celebrate life, love and equality. 

Travel to Malaysia: Getting Your Way Around

We got off at the LCCT – KLIA not knowing how to get to Jalan Masjid, which was the place where we made hotel reservations online.  From the airport’s arrival area (keluar) there were strings of people holding up placards indicating bus services and their corresponding prices which was RM 18.00 per person. Those people looked desperate albeit official since they had booths; we decided to ignore them and we went outside to look for a way to get to the city. One of the best things about visiting Malaysia is that almost everyone speaks fluent English; a very helpful local directed us to a fleet of buses that had routes to the city, they sold tickets for RM 8.00.

We were dropped off at KL Sentral which is the transfer point for all the major rail systems in the country. We had trouble buying the tokens to get to our destination and this is how we firsthand experienced how helpful and honest the people of Malaysia are. While trying to buy the token, a woman from the back approached my mom and assisted us on doing the purchase and even directed us on how to get to the trains. As all of that was going on, I unknowingly dropped a wad of cash in Philippine denominations on the floor, a man tapped me on the back and gave it back bidding me to be careful the next time. When we got off of the train station we were hard put to locate the hotel but again the extremely helpful locals came through and lead us to where we needed to go. A guy helped us as well in finding a good place to have dinner which turned out to be really affordable.

One must be able to navigate their way on their own if one is travelling on a budget. You can ask anyone’s assistance and from my own experience everyone would be happy to help. The free maps at the airport are really handy. Get two maps just in case you lose the first one and take one copy of each if they come in different varieties. The Railway system of Malaysia is easy enough to understand and with the help of a map you’ll be able to get to whatever it is you want to go to and save a lot of money.

One Must remember to stay on the right hand side if you plan on waiting for the escalator to get you either up or down since a lot would be sprinting on their way to wherever it may be and you wouldn't want to get in their way. There is always either an escalator or a lift to take you up or down in the train stations. We learned this painfully having to carry our luggage through an endless flight of stairs and finding out in the end there's actually a lift on the opposite side. Seats are reserved for the elderly those who have disabilities as well as pregnant women, give way! 

My Blunders with Clothing

           Looking good has been an ability by many of my friends. I’m dumbfounded in that department though. I am well aware that scrutiny is in every corner yet I have been able to dismiss it as far as I could. Now that I’ve reached the part of my life called adolescence (e-hem...e-hem), I have no choice but to re-evaluate my exterior form in a more meticulous way than I ever had in the past. 

           My fashion blunders could be piled into records and can put any palatial library to shame. I blame the mishaps partly to my unsupportive mother, who never really got the hang of the idea of me-being the fashion savant that I would have been if she had given me the “green” for a formidable buying-power, I love her still tough. The other agent for the aforementioned occurrence is also due to my then clueless self–image. I never thought about it that much; I always felt that the people who often gawk at me are either impressed or insecure. When I look back at the outfits with those color-matching schemes… picture this: blue bandana, ¾ blue polo-shirt, khaki jeans and blue loafers. Yep, you heard it right a bandana… while watching a movie. The pants altered in shady ateliers to make them into super-flared trousers. How is this so? I would buy denim from my local sewing store and head to my atelier of choice with my doomed pants to be turned into creations of art, or so I thought. I would also horde the then extremely popular pheasant tops, with their butterfly sleeves and tons and tons of ruffles galore. In what color did you ask? Well, the usual black and red. The not so friendly choice of color combinations was the main culprit for those disasters, I remember one night-out with my extremely stylish friends. I wore a green shirt my mom bought for me, paired with the blood red elephant pants I bought and how can I forget the seashell pendant as my accessory. Talk about being the spirit of Christmas! The rampant self-humiliations also occurred in many places not just at school or in the mall. There was this time when we went to Club V. I was wearing the omnipresent ¾ polo-shirt, white pants, black slip-ons, and a fuchsia scarf. Oh yes you heard right! I was wearing an effing scarf in a club. I looked like a freaking bank teller.

           To this day I still have those off-days were I wear chunky green platform clogs and a polka-dotted yellow maternity dress. I never really got the hang of that mix and matching thing. I think I can safely call it mismatching complex. Never did I have the hang of that layering thing that’s all the rage this season. Vigilance is the key, effort is also needed. Fashion is not just a wanton thing that you can neglect all you want. You could be born with exceptionally good genes

The Filipino Bakya-Complex

 I’m not trying to be something bordering to fashion-guruish, but I think I should have a say in these whole issue of what I christened, the Filipino Bakya-complex. You know what I mean? How many of us horde the glossies of our choice perusing each page for the hottest looks of the season. But there is one thing you should understand; the season in North America is not exactly the same with ours. You asked why? Not just because there is the obvious longitudinal distance, the location of the continents we belong in gives us different weather patterns; giving them four seasons’ autumn, winter, summer and spring while we only have the rainy and sunny seasons (sounds like pre-school). So we cannot really wear the autumno/inverno of the west. We can at the least take focal points from the fashion collections like the colors, materials, and piece it together to make it appropriate to be worn in the equatorial part of the globe. Basically it means- do not wear the faux fur coat, iolite knitted scarves that drops to your knees with button details and the chunky-clunky uggs. We also see a lot of unconventional pieces nowadays brought to us by the avant-garde masters of fashion, there is nothing wrong with this, Ivarluski Aseron was even commissioned by Folded and Hung to make prêt-a-porter pieces for their line. The two things we have to take into account is the local demographic in the place we would wear these pieces and the location and event where we would go wearing them. Simply put, do not do your groceries wearing an asymmetrical metallic top with gargantuan sleeves reminiscent of the Japanese kimono, the deconstructed denim with a plethora of gun-metal studs and sky high Gucci Oxfords (I know I sound a wee bit exaggerated, but that’s an idea for you).  

     Further on that note, we also have this thing were in we mimic what we see the local celebrities are wearing on TV. I know mimicry in psychological theories is a phase we all go trough in childhood; but to wear a hoodie in the middle of the summer heat wave, just because Sandara Park did so, is just awfully wrong. This is based on actual experience, there I was roasting alive with my friend and we saw two girls strolling along wearing blue and pink long sleeved jackets with hoods! I was thinking “damn they must be wearing eucalyptus sunblocks!”  That would explain the superhuman tolerance to the excruciating heat that would have rendered us mortals into a one-way heatstroke.  

       The moral of the story is we should wear what we feel comfortable in. It doesn’t mean you should have no qualms about whatever you slap on your back. Depending on what the magazines dictate for you to wear and imitating the garbs of the stars would only make you unimaginative and it would mean forfeiting your identity for someone else’s. We should strive for individuality and harness our creativity to its fullest extent. Never should we be the doppelgangers’ of the celebrities. We should be our own selves and be proud of it.