When I was in elementary school a friend of my uncle stayed and lived with us for a few weeks. It wasn’t such a big deal but for the weird fact that she had bandages on her nose.

She usually stayed inside the house and didn’t like going outside. That was puzzling so,in the presence of my uncle, I asked her what happened to her nose.

She said she got hit by a bulldozer.

I felt disbelief, confusion and shock. I looked to my uncle for confirmation and he said it’s true. So, being a child, I believed what I was told.

It wasn’t until a few years upon looking back that I realized that they were playing a joke on me. She wasn’t hit by a bulldozer; she had a nose lift! The pun with the bulldozer was used since it is known to flatten everything on its path. And the reason she stayed with us is that so no one can know that she had an operation! Oh, the gullibility of a child!

She probably did so because it was a norm in her job in the entertainment industry. Even now celebrities try to enchance their looks with liposuction, botox injections, possibly, like my uncle’s friend, even having a Los angeles Rhinoplasty. Stars you see today may have an entirely different face tomorrow. Oh, the pressures of stardom!

There are things that everyone wishes they can do, or have the freedom or courage do to so. And in truth not all manage to find the will to do it. So I wanted to list the things that I want to do, but lack the courage to do so.

• Give up my career to become a writer – probably the hardest one I have. I don’t even know if I’m good enough to write, much less become an author.
• Get a few Tattoos. The pain involved stays me from getting one. But if I do manage to get up the courage, I’d want a cross intertwined in thorns or blue roses, or maybe a unicorn. Is it possible to have a tattoo that is colored blue?
• Marry for love. Easier said than done.
• Tour the world. I want to see the Netherlands, Venice, Greece, Ireland and explore the tourist destinations in my country. What’s preventing me from doing so? Obligations.
• Live on my own. I desperately want to. The roadblock? Again, obligations.

I’ll look back here again in a few years and see which ones of these I actually managed to do. Wish me luck!

I miss my grandparents. It’s been years since my last grandparent passed away, leaving me with no grandparent at all. I am closer to my grandparents on my mother side though, since I was still little when my father’s parents died. Though I do remember bits and pieces of my memories with them in it.

The only memory I have of my paternal grandfather would be his funeral. I remember hiding behind my parent and clinging to his leg as I peeked into where my grandfather’s coffin was. And I truly regret not having any other recollection of him.

I do remember some memories of my paternal grandmother, though there is a memory in particular that I’ve never forgotten, and doubt ever will.

My father and I visited her in a little hut inside the family’s property. We were accompanied by my aunt who, it seemed, was the one who guarded the lock on the hut. ‘Why was grandmother locked in a hut?’ I asked my father. I thought it extremely unfair to have her locked up like that. He said that my grandmother was sick, and her mind was failing and that it wasn’t safe for her to be outside anymore.

I asked my father what he meant and he said that she keeps spacing out, wandering elsewhere and forgetting things, even who she was. They had no choice but to keep her locked because a few days before she was wandering through the streets, not knowing where she was going. She could’ve been run over by a car or accosted by unruly people. And since my aunt who lives with her can’t keep an eye on her every single minute, they decided to lock her up.

That broke my heart, young as I were. I wanted to take her someplace else. Someplace where she can be taken care of, be given the attention and care that she deserves. Maybe a bay area hospice with a nice garden. She’ll like that. She likes gardens.

I looked at my grandmother as we left and she was smiling at me. At the moment she remembers who I am but I’m not sure she still will after we leave. But even if she does forget, I know I won’t. I won’t forget her smiling at the little shy child that was me.