Celebrity Look-Alikes, Manila-Style, mid-Sept 2013

So while I was in Manila a couple weeks ago, I had a few encounters with people who said I reminded them of a celebrity. It went like this:

1. We were prepping for a session with AusAID to demonstrate using speed dating as a way to collect evaluation data. Roy, one of our PhD students who is from the Philippines, was responsible for drafting questions for the stations. When he got them done, we sat down as a group (Amy, Janet, and Tim - our other PhD student on the team) to go through them and see if any needed to be changed. The first few are pretty typical - like "How much more confident do you feel about doing a program logic - Not at All to Great Deal?" Then Roy gets this cheeky grin and reads out: "How important is it that an evaluator is good looking? For instance, Amy looks like Catherine Zeta Jones - Not At All to A Great Deal"

2. and 3. Every time we've been in Manila we've stayed at the New World Hotel in Makati. As I mentioned the staff are super friendly and quite attentive. Janet and I were working in conference room in the executive level Thursday afternoon. I had to go down and get Tim since he couldn't come up to the exec level without a keycard. One of the staff walked to the elevators with me, introduced himself as Steve and said, "I've been wanting to tell you that you remind me of a celebrity." "Really?" I said, (thinking of CZJ), "that's awfully kind of you. Who do I remind you of?" "Linda Carter." Later that day, a different fellow on the executive level, who had been bringing us happy hour drinks all week said, "You remind me of someone - an American actress, but I can't remember her name." I offered the suggestions that had been made so far in the week. "No, No... I'll think of it." 20 minutes later he came over to me and said, "Meryl Streep."

Really?

4. After our night of birthday cocktails and dancing, Janet and Julie (our AusAID partner) were discussing my dancing. I've been compared to a muppet before, so I wasn't expecting it to be flattering. Julie says to Janet, "Doesn't she remind you of Peter Garrett?" Janet's response, "YES! That's who it is!" Peter Garrett was the lead singer for Midnight Oil (an Aussie band from the 80s). Someone else liked his dancing so much they made a compilation of it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd1IMmsOc6g 

So, no worries that my head was too big to fit in the airplane. I made it back to Melbourne just fine.