About Me

Hi there. I’m Kristine, born in the 1980s on Philippine Independence Day. A lot of people seem amazed that I popped out of my mother’s womb on this historic national holiday so I figured you might find me a little more interesting if I mentioned this fact. If you think otherwise then jeez, you’re pretty hard to impress. I can’t do a somersault so I got nothing.

I grew up in Gensan but I’ve been slogging through the traffic, congestion and pollution of Metro Manila since I was 16. Yes, I’m from Manny Pacquiao’s hometown. No, we are not neighbors, I’ve never seen his house and we’ve never met. But I do find that cab drivers, police officers and airport security are nicer to me when they learn that Pacquiao is my kababayan so I’m milking that for all its worth.

I hate marshmallows. I’ve eaten frogs, snakes and woodworms and I can probably stomach a few bugs but I’d never eat a marshmallow. Don’t ask me why because I also can’t give a rational explanation for it. Maybe I had a nightmare of being attacked by a giant marshmallow monster when I was a kid. I’m also freaked out by long fingernails. I don’t care if they’re well-manicured, coated with classy nail polish and stamped with pretty designs. They’re creepy.

I like to watch football, UFC fights and F1 races. Yeah, I’m a girl and I enjoy watching cars racing at breakneck speed and brawny guys beating the crap out of each other. Get over it, it’s not that weird (at least not as weird as having an aversion to marshmallows or a mortal fear of long fingernails).

I like books which is why I thought of Nagbabasang Pinoy (literal translation: a Filipino who reads) as a blog title. I initially planned on blogging mainly about books I’ve read but churning out reviews became too much work and I’m lazy by nature so that didn’t pan out. I still write about books from time to time but don’t expect any decent form of literary criticism.

I’ve been recently infected by wanderlust so a good amount of posts are about travel interspersed with drinking beer, getting lost, unwittingly photobombing other people’s shots and being involved in something extremely stupid and/or mildly life-threatening. I use a cheap digital point-and-shoot for taking pictures and my photography skills are passable at best, blurry at worst so don’t go looking for breath-taking photos either.

Aside from books and travel, I also blabber about, well, anything I feel like blabbering  about really. Coherence is not my strong point. So if you’re into reading mundane blog posts from a possibly unhinged marshmallow hater, then feel free to look around and know that you have my utmost gratitude. If some keyword search mistakenly led you to this blog, then please accept my apologies for not being able to give the information you were looking for and I hope you find something substantial elsewhere. And if you actually read this long-winding post in its entirety and didn’t barf or roll your eyes in annoyance, then you are the most awesome person in my book. Let’s be friends.