David Archuleta's rendition of Nandito Ako is pretty good. It is just a sneak peak from YouTube but I must say that the boy really delivered the lyrics well, as if he's been speaking Tagalog his entire life. Then a friend said that there was already another rendition of the song by a foreign artist before. Thalia also did the song back in 1997 when Marimar was a big hit series in the country. All of a sudden, I remembered the very first series I loved when I was eleven. Every night, I was in front of the television set together with grandma and grandpa to watch this Mexican series.
Sissy as it may look but Rosalinda is the very reason I spent half of my life fond of watching television. It was a 1999 series aired in Mexico about a girl named Rosalinda; hence, the title of the series. It is a typical rags-to-riches story, which apparently is the plot of all Thalia's telenovelas. The series really got me hooked. It was a top-rater foreign series on television then, even breaking records and hit almost 60% audience share nationwide. Funny thing though, in a 30-minute timeslot of the series, probably around 10 minutes were allotted for the actual episode of the day, and the rest was for advertisements. The commercial gaps were really long it would make you crazy waiting for the next scenes.
It was the very series that caught my attention to so many things. I was eleven then and it really left me with so many questions. That was the first time I saw two people kissing. And by kissing, I mean the passionate one. The kissing scenes of the series stripped out one part of my innocent mind. After watching those scenes, I then knew that kissing involves exchanging saliva with your partner. I was disgusted at first, then realized that really is what it is.
The overly attractive actor and actress of the series really caught me as well. Thalia is really beautiful and attractive. Her leading man Fernando Carillo playing the character of Fernando Jose Altamirano del Castillo is equally gorgeous and sexy. I was left thinking could I just be like these two. They are the very first "hotness personified" in my life. Their bodies are to die for, especially now that I have the mind ripped off to mundane thoughts. My goodness. How I wish I have those abs and the body of the Venezuelan actor. They are the very first love team I actually loved; there were no Bea-John Lloyd or Sarah-Gerald before.
ARIADNA THALIA SODI MIRANDA
 |
| as Rosalinda Perez Romero |
FERNANDO ENRIQUE CARRILLO ROSELLI
 |
| as Fernando Jose Altamirano del Castillo |
And of course, the bed scenes. Ultimately, the honeymoon scene of Rosalinda and Fernando Jose is still vivid on my mind. I was losing it then. It left me hanging, really, with questions such as why were they kissing like there's no tomorrow? What were they doing? It took me, I guess, a year, like after graduating in grade school, to know that what they were doing on-cam was a bed scene. It imitates sex. How I learned what sex is, is way different of a story.
So you see, my grandma and grandpa did not really guide me while watching this series, though it said scenes might not be suitable for viewers my age then, and they needed to guide me. No. I figured them out myself. It was kind of embarrassing though that I learned much of the things an adolescent needed to be guided with, well by a television series. But I don't care. The story of Thalia's telenovelas has been the benchmark here in the Philippines, of all the drama series which involves man and woman in love. Rosalinda is the very reason I love television, and it is my hero when I was in my adolescent years. I will always remember the series, and love it to bits.
Images taken from Google