25 Random Facts about Danreb

1. I sold ‘Balut’ (or that exotic Philippine dish I shall call ‘formed duck eggs’) with my brother for 1 week when I was 8 (and he was 10) to our neighbors so we’d have a school allowance and help my mom during those trying period of our family life…placed in a pink styrofoam basket and yelling ‘Baluuuut!’ and then laughing with my brother, it would get sold out in 30 minutes everyday for 1 straight week, my mom asked us to stop doing it and thought of another way to earn money single-handedly. That’s when our relatives from the US went out of their way to help us and assisted in bringing us to where we are now.

2. My elder brother and I argue a lot about everything. We both come from totally different perspectives. We’re the complete opposite but I love him that much, and he loves me even more. Right, Kuya?

3. When I was 7, my cousin and I would gather up 2-4 year-old kids in our neighborhood and played teacher with them, we taught them ABCs, numbers, and the usual children’s songs like ‘row row row your boat’ and ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ and we would hit them in the butt for missing an answer in their exams. They would go home crying and their mothers would knock on our door asking me to say ’sorry’ to them and that’s when our make-shift school eventually had it’s sorry day. We did so many more crazy things after that.

4. My mom, so proud of his sons, would tell her friends and our guests that we can declaim, sing, dance, draw, and everything, she asked my brother to draw cars and me to dance to entertain our guests.

5. I have a speech impediment, but that inspired me more to apply in a call center and told the recruiters that I have one but I sound clearly on the phone so I’m still a fit for the job, and I got in, even getting the highest scores during simulation and examinations, and was awarded ‘the Best Customer Service Representative’ on my first month in my first call center company for having the highest sales of Dish Network Satellite system. I eventually became a Quality Analyst and a Quality Trainer in another call center teaching new hires pronunciation, enunciation, customer service, and the likes! I’m getting an official speech check-up and therapy right after I buy the things I needed to this year.

6. At 8, i was so envious with my brother because mom bought him a pair of graded eyeglasses, I would take it away from him and wear it outside and even in school.Then I asked my brother how his eyes got the ‘blur’, I did everything he said and after a year, I finally got my own pair of eyeglasses, and now I needed my 20-20 vision back, not in 2020, though, but soon.

7. When my brother bought his first pair of contact lenses, I bought mine the very next day.

8. In high school, I knew that drawing is my brother’s talent, but I took the plunge in joining our school’s Nutrition Month activity themed something like ‘healthy food is clean food’. 1 week before the contest, I bought an oil pastel and asked our school’s poster making hall-of-famer about mixing and blending colors. On the day of the contest, I drew a big pan with vegetables, fruit, and meat in it and fire and chopped wood underneath it. Our hall-of-famer got the 2nd place and guess who bagged the first. I got 300 pesos (100,000 VND or 5 USD) for it.

9. In college, I joined almost all kinds of organization because I wanted to know everything and everyone: Choir (yes, go IAS bass!), Pep Squad, Journalism society, our batch’s Volleyball team, my beloved student publication, The Advocate, and more. In almost all of our classes in college from freshman to my senior year, I’d always get elected as class president for looking like a geek and being one,too (wink). And now a shark whore out in the open sea. LOL

10. I am passionate about everything that I love doing. I would cry or look teary-eyed during declamations and get them classmates cry, and would get sick after for all the tensions!

11. Before, I’d spend a lot of time in front of the mirror before a date, a speech, or anything that’s got to do with being formal and cute (lol), observing how my lips would go when I speak, or how I’d look like when I react to something. And now I got conditioned to it and learned to love the way I look (read: Learned).

12. In college, I’d wash my face and look in the mirror every single hour because I believed I must always be ready to face the camera. My skin eventually felt dry, and now I’m using 2 kinds of moisturizer and still believes that I should always be ready to face the camera anytime and anywhere.

13. I love the spotlight, but I know when to give way.

14. I almost got recruited by an activist when I was a freshman in college, and as a form of initiation, they asked me to literally paint the town red with rebellious remarks, I quit right there and then thinking I can ‘paint the town red’ in my own way. and when I aggressively heard about ‘Guerilla Marketing’ 2 years ago, that’s what and other tactics came into my mind.

15. When I got heartbroken once, I immediately processed my passport because I said I wanted to vanish (but not from earth! I so wanted him to realize what he’ll be missing most about!), had a passport photo taken the next day when my eyes still look sore from all the crying, my passport still has the same photo, and it never fails to make me smile whenever the immigration officers do their cross-checks. The heartbreaker is now one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world, I’d love for him to make his facebook account, quick!

16. For 2 years, I’d tell my friends I would go to Vietnam because my brother was there,too, and I’d be able to finally start all over again, and then they’d keep on asking me, ‘why are you still here?!’. and then I kept mum, only a very few people knew I was leaving for real.

17. When I was a college senior, a freshman taught me how to smoke. and I smoke not because of the ‘calming’ benefits you get from it. I just got used to having one in my mouth after each meal, and smoked even more when I worked in the call center before where all that I know smoke together, so now I think I’m going to smoke forever.

18. I was handpicked to be one of the UAAP cheerleaders when I was in college after a grueling’ and ballet-ish audition, I had to quit right before the the official training began because I passed the examinations for our university’s student publication which I really wanted to pursue. I regretted quitting because all them cheerleaders were given free rubber shoes, and stuffs, and gained maximum public exposure and accolades during the UAAP games. hahahahahaha!

19. I only started and learned to cook 2 years ago – in Vietnam.

20. The very first song I sung in school was ‘it’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all!’ And I was crying while singing that because my yaya left me in the classroom, and then when I looked to my right, I saw a cute little girl named Brenda, and I immediately had a crush on her, the song ended with me looking like I saw an apparition. Hello, Brenda! (her name’s the reverse of mine, can you believe it?, lol)

21. In high school, my room was filled with big mayonnaise glasses containing frogs and insects, I loved biology that much I did my own lab.

22. I am afraid of ghosts and stories of supernatural beings and experiences but I love listening to it and watching horror movies. In high school, I made my classmates and teachers believe I had a third-eye, and even the one who really have a third-eye had her third-eye blinded with all my make-believe urban legends. Why did I do it? Because I can.

23. I have the habit of reading between the lines of whatever people say, I just look like I don’t get it, but seriously I do. it’s fun sometimes when what they say can mean many things or can be interpreted in a way that would hit the mark or would answer some thoughts I have in mind.

24. Seriously, I love my dad.

25. I believe I was born to be in PR. It’s funny when everything that I did in the past, from writing – to joining a contest – to effectively selling satellite dish – to quality works – to corporate life – to excel, graphs, statistics – to surveying for a car service – to entertaining for my mom’s guests and my friends – to being always conscious of people’s comments and feedback – to being simply charming (hahahahahaha, sorry ha this is my page!) – to experimenting and researching – to activism and guerilla marketing – and for the love of being around with people and partying, to the continuous learning I am getting from 2 years ago until forever, all of these give me an answer to my career’s everyday questions.

Slumdog millionaire, much? L O L.

 

February 6th, 2009 by Danreb Cartagena Mejia I'll be very glad to find out from you, whatever it is.