Dear Bunso,

Please know that however bratty kinda’ young adult people sees you to be, and how kinda’ true that may be, suck it babe! We are sisters and trust that I can see far beyond that. I’m proud of you no matter what.

Always,

Bonsai

***

And because its her birthday, allow me to break open some fun facts that people may not know. Hereon are the 10 things you may not know about (my sister) Joeliza Pahamutang. 

1. Her name is a portmanteau of our parent’s names.

Joel + E”liza”beth = Joeliza

2. One of her nicknames when we were kids was Pango.

What a relief! She doesn’t have to be called as that now.

3. She just loves food!

Aside from her known love for fast food, her gratification to open a can of Blue Bay Tuna to top on a bowl of rice or alternatively fill layers and layers of bread with condensed milk IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT deserves the right to be unimaginable!

4. She loves cockroach so intensely she would be willing to lose herself EVERY TIME she sees one.

To help those interested imagine, in a war scenario when a person needs to lay on the ground whilst protecting  himself from getting shot by ammo – replace the enemy with a cockroach – and once she catches it, try to imagine that grudge, that strong resentment in every slipper slap even at the cockroach’s already dead body, not even a single cell in that poor thing survives.

5. Her kindness is weird and the counterpart is beyond inhumane.

Weird in such a way she’d be willing to sacrifice her own piece of work for someone else’s sake – e.i. her own chance to graduate – that weird!

But as all of us gets sometimes, her beast mode is at its finest once she loses all the horses.

6. The moment she entered the ‘teenager’ zone, her thing with lipsticks popped out from lip-whisperer-knows-where and maaane have it stopped? Nah.

Her lipsticks were apparently double the amount of her allowance & she just didn’t mind.

7.  Her love for her pets is incomparable.

I remember an instance, she was preparing for school when we suddenly heard a dog fight outside the house. She seemed very certain her dog was involved and rushed outside to stop them only to realize she forgot to wear her top. Unconditional love it is!

8. She cries inside like a winner.

Coping up with her own problems thou there were some leakages of expression on social media and besides the fact that everyone is entitled to be such a debby-downer at times, never have I ever witnessed her be as emotionally messed up as she’s expected to (haha!). Grace under pressure really pays off.

9. She ‘indirectly’ cares too much & she doesn’t even know it.

She listens. She respects. She may look like she only cares about food but no. She may not even understands yet but you can count she will listen and respect whatever that is, and rest assured that there is a perfect time when she’ll hit you hard with words if one is necessarily and urgently needs a wake up call.

10. She used to be a fan of this cliche “no guy, no cry” theory until an improbable event happened.

She fell in love. And all the theory jumps out off the window seizing to make her own story waiting to be written and that I trust one day would be worth sharing!

***

What are the 10 things you’d like us to know about Joeliza?