Of all the OMFG moments in a young girl’s life, there are a few that can really top a meeting with someone of calibre like Hilary Clinton. For a total plebian like me, it was like a dream come true.

Last year, walking home from work,

But, as any ambitious girl would, I rose up to the challenge and pretended that this person was the Queen and decided I couldn’t wear my paint-stained war-weary school blazer to this conference. Just as Lady Gaga suited up for her meeting with the Queen, I did a Gaga and went all out with my appearance. I got my blazer dry-cleaned, tailored, and braided with the prefects’ braiding. I got my hair cut and removed the bright neon-orange nail polish off my nails. As the days got closer to the actual date of the conference, my newly-dry-cleaned, tailored, and braided blazer looked just the part for a conference with the now-announced Hilary Clinton. Yes, this OMFG moment was actually well within my reach-until disaster struck (no actually disaster, natural disaster that is) and ousted me out, and thus, my meeting with ‘Hilary’ was cancelled (thanks Haiti).

The above serves as a lengthy anecdotal introduction to my topic this month-our claims to fame (or in this case, lack thereof). I only have a handful of these besotted moments under my belt. This includes my strange encounter with Serj Tankian of the band System of a Down at Pak N’ Save in the deli section last year. I remember it was a vaguely depressing day, and so I wandered among the yoghurt-deli section alone, while my mother requested $4 worth of honey-cured bacon from the hairnet-wearing deli lady. I happened to not be wearing my glasses that day, too, and anyone who knows me well enough will know how ridiculously myopic (short-sighted) I am. And so among the discounted Calci-Yum chocolate yoghurts and Anchor Milk Specials, I almost walked into this tall Middle-Eastern man who I thought looked like a really skinny clown. But as I got closer to him, I realised who it was and my jaw dropped. I must have been such a spectacle that Serj smiled and winked at me. I was too shocked to do anything, even if this guy had headlined the Big Day Out, and my brother had learned his bands’ drum solos and guitar leads off by heart and had sold a ridiculous amount of CDs.

Another strange OMFG moment was when my family was in Los Angeles last year and we went to morning mass in a Spanish church in West LA. Since it was a Spanish church, the masses were, consequently, mostly Spanish. All the English ones were held at some ungodly early hour probably because it wasn’t as ‘prime-time’ as the Spanish ones.

My family had steered clear of these Spanish masses, because they held the embarrassing power of heightening our ‘tourist-ness’. During these masses, we fitted in just because we had nodded along to whatever the priest was saying in rapid Spanish, but came the time we opened our mouths for the ‘peace be with you’ part, nothing came out but gurgled noises. And I know how we Filipinos like to boast how much Spanish blood runs through our veins (more like, ran through our veins), but being vaguely Spanish still doesn’t make you Spanish and thus, you are left bereft of any linguistic comfort among the sea of heavily-accented Español.

But onwards. During that morning mass, there were only a handful of church-goers that had mustered up the courage to get up that early. My body clock still had some adjusting to do and so I bravely tried to keep my eyes open. I got a jab on my side to wake me up, but my parents hadn’t woken me up for my insolence, but to point out that it was the one-and-only legendary ‘Magic’ Johnson sitting beside us, which to my then 16-year-old brain didn’t ring any bells. But my parent’s wouldn’t let it go and so I had no choice but to poke my head out for a look. Sure, he was incredibly tall, semi-bald, and looked like a decent person. What was the big deal? Why were my parents frenetically shaking his hand during ‘Peace be with you’? It wasn’t until we went to the Staples Centre the next day and saw a statue of the very same man that sat next to us, that I hit myself for my ignorance.

So to conclude this incredibly lengthy showcase of my ineptness for thinking on my feet, I have made a firm resolution to have my brain switched on at all times, to silence all shyness that might hold me back from dorkily asking for a celebrity’s autograph and picture. Also, I promise to increase my arsenal of pop culture trivia so I don’t make the same mistake such as occasions like Mr Johnson’s. And lastly, I swear to always having my hair okay (at least) every time I go out just in case I happen to bump into, say, Prince William among the toothpaste-and-shampoo aisles of Foodtown. But I’m pretty sure that’ll never happen. But you never know, right?