all about me in E prime

People call me “Kathleen”. If you ask me about any anectode to explain the history of my name, I guess I have nothing alluring to tell. I caught glimpse of the world on the 30th of December 1993. I shattered the defeaning silence of the hospital’s delivery room with my incessant crying, as though announcing my arrival in this world amidst the cacophony of delivery room forceps and the slow hum of the nurses’ hurried activities.
My mother, Cristina works as a midwife. . I don’t exactly know how she does it, but it always amazes me how she could manage her time so well—with us and the entire barangay to take care of simultaneously.
My father, Lino, works as a seaman and understandably, we only see each other once in a year. That would only last for about a couple months so my mother did the Herculean job of rearing the five of us alone.
While girls my age spend time with cell phones and making babies, I spend mine watching series of movies. The genres I prefer involve scenes with tortures, massacres, and massive bloodshed. And take note, I also love memorizing movie punch lines—especially those from the antagonist. I find it too boring and ordinary to patronize the “bida”. I find them pathetic and indulgent. The antagonist strikes me as someone with thrill, aura of mystery, and bloody excitement. Bwahahaha…I so love their laughter!
I also hate pets as much as I loathed pimples. I find them of great disadvantage to me, especially if taking care of them meant I have to waste a great deal of my precious time. I picture canines as nothing but excellent sources of rabies virus. I find cats very messy too. I hate the way they leave their excretas everywhere, and when you happen to have a contact with it, congratulations to you! You now have the ever dreaded disease, Toxoplasmosis. In addition to that, cats seemed too noisy whenever they’re having an intercourse with their fellow cats, as if broadcasting their love affairs to the entire Cat Community.
I love reading novels and paperbacks even though my mother hates it with all her heart. If you happen to learn that I’ve already stayed inside the CR for about an hour already, you now have the right to be suspicious. If you must know, I consider the CR as my perfect hideout. I labeled it as the only place I deemed safe enough to read my beloved pocketbooks for it keeps my mom from easy access of these books.
I love to dress up, use make-ups and wear stilettos. I go crazy over accessories and nail polish too. Sad thing, though, the last time I painted my nails, I got a major scolding from my mom. She gave me an hour-long lecture about how nail polish contains chemicals that could absorb in the blood and could cause cancer someday-- blah, blah, blah.

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN COMMUNICATION

Men and women are opposite poles. And yes, like magnets, they also attract each other. Ironically, this ‘difference’ that drew them together is also the exact same element that can create conflict and inflict havoc upon the relationship. One of the big challenges that poses a threat to the smoothness of any relationship is a person’s ability to communicate.
Communication is an art that needs a delicate balancing. There should be an equilibrium between verbal and nonverbal messages. Men by nature are more of thinkers than talkers. When a problem arises, they tend to be task-oriented and less responsive in communication. When they say that they want to think first before saying anything, they really mean it. That’s why they find it irritating when women lash everything out on them, demanding to talk right away. On the other hand, when a woman says that she needs some space to think, she doesn’t really want to be left alone. She wants to be given attention or to be pursued. That’s why she easily gets furious when a guy quits wooing her. The problem becomes bigger and bigger. The root cause? Communication gap.
Men also tend to be honest to the point of bluntness. While women are endowed with supreme prowess with words, men are rather precise and explicit. That’s why they’re oftentimes guilty of giving monosyllabic responses. For them, the equation is simple: black is black and white is white. Women, however, love speaking in riddles. They’re huge fans of figures of speech and hyperbole is one of their all-time favorites. In short, they find this equation amusing: “When I say black, it’s actually white. I’m not gonna give you the clues. It’s up to you to find out.”
Who says that infidelity is the main cause of increase in divorce rates? Men and women are created differently. God intended this difference not to make them become like cats and dogs, North Korea and South Korea, Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden, Tom and Jerry, Dallas and Miami, so on and so forth...Their uniqueness from each other is suppose to create an aura of mystique that will attract them to each other. He gave them opposite attributes because He wants them to complement each other as partners.
Because of this, both genders should place high importance on healthy communication patterns. A good communicator knows when to talk and when to shut up. The problem with us is the fact that when we hear the word “communication”, we immediately nurse a picture of ourselves talking and talking and talking. What we omitted in the scene is the fact that psychiatrists gave emphasis on silence as one of most helpful elements of therapeutic communication. So the next time that you want to open your mouth, remember that God gave us two ears and one mouth because He wants us to listen twice as much as we talk.
Transparency is the key to resolve communication problems. The day we get past the level of cliché conversations and move on to honest discussions of our feelings is the day we would finally attain a more stable, refreshing, and dynamically secure relationship.
At the end of the day, what matters most is not what we said, but how we said it.