free time

relieved. a few hours after my oral defense. hahaha. can't get over the fact that am done. at long last. it's been 3 long years of fun and pain combined.

am saying goodbye to the busy me. and saying hello to free time. adjustments are in order. sabi ko kay j, our fate has reversed, sya na yung hindi makausap pag weekend and here i found myself actually helping him, check his students' test papers, grading them and encoding some of his lectures for him.

now free time what do i with you? hmmm.maybe some of the free time, ill spend thinking about what to do with you.

maybe ill engage in sports. not me. maybe ill join youth clubs. not exactly me but can try. maybe ill just stay in the house, find my laundry, clean up, etc. half-me so can try. or maybe doll myself up.haha not so me. hmm bahala na lang. in the meantime, i thank the Lord for bringing me where i am now. free time is YOUR bonus to me so im gonna savor it.

Merry Kidsmas!

If anyone wishes to make a kid happy this Christmas, here’s something knocking at your door J

For 300 pesos only a piece, a red shirt designed by Robert Alejandro (front design) and Ray Leyesa (back design)

Godbless and Merry Kidsmas!

liberating

I am surrounded with a lot of blessings these past two weeks. I passed my oral defense last Thursday and that signals the end of my MBA. Both happy and sad. Happy coz I’ve successfully juggled work with studies and without compromising one over the other. Sad coz school I’ve told friends had been my boredom antidote. For lack of anything new to do, ang sarap kapag pupunta ka sa isang hallway na puno ng tao from different walks of life – may entrepreneur, may careerwomen and men, may bum, may clueless and searching for what best to do, but we all share one thing in common, we are S-T-U-D-E-N-T-S, na nanginginig kapag finals na, pero tatawanan na lang after, coz its spilt milk anyway, yung magpproject infront of everyone acting like you know everything you’re about to report when you’ve just studied it a few minutes ago, beating deadlines overnight for papers na binigay two months back pa..hayy the joys and pains of an MBA life. And truthfully, what helped me through was knowing that, we were all in those joys and pains together, my friends in MBA na kapareho ko din pala, magcram, magpanic, magworry.its such a relief. The 3 years just wheezed by…and to know that its, over, it so liberating.

lots of things happening

A lot of things are happening around me and with me. Si ying has gone to Europe! And with so many pics she shared with us, parang nakita na rin naming ung paris! Take us with you next time. Pero I promised j that wherever I go, nothing beats the experience of being with him so isasama ko sya when I go to beautiful places like these, which means ung funds naming should be times 2. haha!

And then, there goes my friend’s misfortune naman last Friday, so extra careful my dearies. I might be tagged as paranoid coz you can never make me bring more than 2 thousand without being edgy. and cards and all of my ids, I never bring all of them. Bahala ng kumalat sya sa mga drawers, and sa maraming bags hehe.

And then theres’ the AD CONGRESS. I’ve been intrigued by this event. Working for some time now in market research, I’ve always wanted to be part of it and luckily this year I got to join. There’s a lot of things to be learned. The line up of speakers were a powerhouse, starting with John Gokongwei who opened the event, he relayed 3 extraordinary successes – SUN CELLULAR, C2 and CEBU PACIFIC. Wow.

And then si neil gaiman, he was very natural coz he shared what he knew and that was very clear in his message. WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNEW. And his closing, it was superb. I’m not good at telling stories coz I miss the details but he basically emphasized what imagination can do, its power and how we often miss it because we are too busy..

So much for imagination, here’s one of the very few but my fave pic during the ad congress.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! :)

pasulyap-sulyap :)

the girl in the middle is jenny, my niece. boy on the right is josh, jojo's nephew. boy on the left, jacob, who's he looking at?

which one's real ?

which one's real? artistic shot care of fortywinks :)

laughter

Link

see how hard we were laughing especially me. i think they were forcing me to act serious, and becoz im such a terrible actor, i ended up doing the contrary. haha! sorry guys...

j, even if it wasn't a ride back home, it felt like home riding with you.

It's so hard to go on diet. Argghh. When you want to look good, my advice?
Just smile :-)
Take it from the diephobics (fear of diet).

I can’t believe I’m finished with strama. Well, almost. Last Monday was our final exams and I did review – to the best of my ability…
Mgbabasa then pupunta sa kitchen to cook something then panty to brew coffee or sa ref, mghahanap ng makakain then magbabasa then pupunta kay j, makikikipagkwentuhan then mgbabasa.
I think all in all, in my attempt to review for 2 days (Saturday and Sunday), 2 hours lang talaga siguro ung sum of the minutes and seconds that I actually sat down and reviewed.

Hehe. Sooo on the day of the exam itself, I was just praying and hoping for the best – ganun talaga pag guilty. The exam was long, it’s one case study but you have to apply all that you’ve learned. grabe, the effort of writing, i just wish maging forgiving si sir, that there are people who because of computer technology have made handwriting a herculean task.

well, 4 hours later and at long last, my classmates and I found ourselves in TGIFs, dun kami ng party. Buffet setting sya so good for us who were all dead tired and drained. I love the ceasar salad and the spag na simple lang ang lasa.
We had a great party – I saw jo in action as an events’ organizer. She got us all standing and look for our zodiac counterparts – and there I found out how rare Capricornians are – rare and precious that’s who they are :)

Here, see the group pic, they’re the toughest school kids today because of a tough teacher. hmmm, why am I missing?


Well, at least I made it on this one pic – that one big smile, you know what it all means, it’s triumph for having survived hahah :)

For the past six days, I've been sleeping very early.. early morning becoz
of my strama paper.
That's the paper you have to cross over.. once in your mba life. Its just
one pero super deadly sya.

Our prof turned it into a rollercoaster experience for us. Originally it
should be submitted on aug 13th. My charming classmates begged and begged.
Ayun, very untypical of sir, he agreed, Friday daw, aug 18th na lang. But on
two conditions, the 10 or so reporters that he assigned should report and
EVERYONE should be present on Monday.
Imagine, everyone's anxiety during the weekend before Monday, what if may
isang merciless creature na mag-absent. Grr. I guess that potentially
merciless being pitied himself if someday he finds himself murdered. Ganun
talaga sa mba. Do or die.

Now that its Thursday, im floating from lack of sleep... and finally gave in
to red bull, my 1st time to try an energy drink plus Pharmaton (doctor j's
prescription). Am in panic, I never imagined I can type this fast! And you
know what.. the unexpected happened..Nagemail si class prexy, our
phenomenally kind, caring and responsible prexy, postponed daw to Saturday!
Imagine? Saturday! Hayyy God is so good! :-)

Although agony prolonged, ok na rin yun, at least ill have time to sleep a
little bit before I write the last few sections - hirap mag-isip while
floating... thank you Lord again.

Pagbigyan nyo na ako, am enjoying photostitch care of canon heheee.

Shepherd’s pie from capriccio at Greenbelt 3.


This was Ays’ despedida last January. Can’t believe 6 months has passed and there’s another aileen in the team now.


Me, eating dessert. As usual in heaven na naman ako.


Diwa, lovely petite diwa. A doting friend. Any guy would be luck to have her. Sobrang maalaga pero palaban as in. sya ung epitome of small but terrible.

Grabe ang toothache ko kahapon, samahan pa ng excessive coughing. Nasal drip
daw sabi ni doc. But really, the worse part is toothache, you lie down, it
doesn't make you feel better. You eat healthy foods, still the same. In
short helpless talaga ang feeling pag ganitong situation. buti na lang, j
stayed by my side. he kept me company the whole day. Hindi lang yan, he
tried cleaning up our unit. How lucky I am. Kaya all I can say is, thank you
thank you thank you, my j. you don't know how much better you make me feel.

we had chez andre pizza (which i learned to love because of sands) at my place then watched dvd, three movies at 30minutes each and then played games, kung anu-ano. wacky shot daw. look at one of us, si gladys (the girl in orange top), wacky pero calculated hehe. ill try to study how that works.hmmm..

Right now, am taking up my last formal class, that is strama. I can't
believe am this close. Tough ung professor kaya we all have to be up on our
toes everytime. Okay na rin coz sabi nila that will help us prepare for the
worst, which is our OCE. MBA hayyy. I think am gonna miss this when its
over. the campus. the people. the deadlines. the case studies. the study
groups, este study kuno groups. In the meantime, ill just enjoy these tough
strama classes. Bahala na si Lord.

Happy burppday my j!!

stay as goofy, thoughtful, kind, sweet, generous and funny as you've always
been. you truly deserve everything that's happened in your life. including
having me by your side. Hihi. :-)

My weekend is g-r-e-a-t. fulfilling. Coz na-fulfill naming lahat ng balak
namin namely:
1. to be veggie people. we cooked toge and thumbs up sila johan and
mors. johan is my housemate and mors is her bf. two lovely people. very
sweet and thoughtful. also we cooked eggplant. It turned out na half-cooked
lang sya. no more eggplant next time.
2. to be fruits people. papaya. banana. mangoes. avocado.
3. to cook something homey. we had spag and thumbs up ulit sila johan
and mors.
4. to repeat our sports day, me and j. Table tennis, yes. but not
swimming coz we ended up fighting. hmmm, how many times have we gotten in
each other's nerves. Di ko na mabilang. Pero all these fighting, arguments
that we have only makes me feel that we genuinely care for each other.
5. swim. the next day we did.

I'm on the 12th episode of felicity! And guess what I'm laughing by myself,
and crying by myself in my room.
Sobra sobrang high school and I miss it terribly.

To have something to look forward to...

Isn't that the most wonderful feeling in the world?

Happy burpppdayyy my pretty jenny :-)
You are four years old, about to go to school, wear black shoes, white
socks, bring baon...


slow down sa paglaki. puhleeezzz...

I wonder how it's like to be a lawyer. Will I be more defensive, more
argumentative than I am now? Will I get into a fight, an argument, much more
often than I do now?

Last Saturday was our sports day.
Imagine me and sports – hugely incompatible.
Pero I was amazed coz even so, nag-enjoy ako.
I enjoyed playing table tennis even if my backhand strokes were imperfect, even if my j had to pick the ball many times over.
Sabi niya, I was doing just fine coz we could manage to hit the ball back and forth. And that’s why after several hits, I deserved the C2.
After that we invaded tutuban and divisoria. We were there at 1p and madaming tao coz it was a Saturday. We bought pei pa koa 350ml for 200 pesos.
Koren pumps na uso for 250. comfy slip-ons for 100 and 2 long sleeved barong for 550 each. Not bad.
And….
To continue with our sports day, nagswim kami when we got home. Grabe ang tawa niya whenever I swim. And everytime, he would turn to me and ask, “why have I been busy with books when I was still a kid?” Sabi ko sa kanya, he can go ask my parents.
Well, ganun talaga.
Some people are sports-minded.
Hanggang sa mind lang ang sports.

But it’s never too late to learn right?

Lord, ang dami dami mong blessings samin ngayon. maraming salamat po.

How I said it must have been really, really bad coz I hurt someone way older than me who I’m sure was very broadminded, fair and sensible person. I was also hurt coz I didn’t know I could be capable of hurting someone that bad and no amount of explanation justified how or why I said it.

Plan B on Tuesday night

Plan A : swimming
Plan B : pig out


YIPEEEE!!!!

We planned to swim but it rained so hard.
Ung kidlat and thunder nakakatakot. Is it possible to get hit by a lightning?
Sabi ni diwa, di naman daw. I trusted her kahit feel ko ung sound ng thunder kasabay nung lightning is literally in my ears – we were seated kase by the window and the windows were open and we were on the 21st floor!
I think the storm danced to our conversation kase diwa who was on the hot seat, was sharing her stormy past with us. Bwahaha.


Not drunk yet. Just feeling drunk-happy.

Acting lang ba to, diwa?


And ava, when the cat is away, este isko is away, the mouse will play.

I enjoyed this swimming kuno session girls. Next time ulet.

Chow Funs

Katie: I want to go to Chow Funs

Ben: I thought we agreed we couldn't really talk at Chow Funs

Katie: I know

Ben: Are you saying Chow Funs because you can't face telling the kids? Because if that's why you're saying Chow Funs, don't say Chow Funs

Katie: That's not why I'm saying Chow Funs. Funs, I'm saying Chow Funs because we're an us. There's a history here, and histories don't happen overnight. In Mesopotamia or Ancient Troy there are cities built on top of other cities, but I don't want another city, I like this city. I know what kind of mood your in when you wake up by which eyebrow is higher, and you know I'm a little quiet in the morning and compensate accordingly, that's a dance you perfect over time. And it's hard, it's much harder than I thought it would be, but there's more good than bad and you don't just give up! And it's not for the sake of the children, but God they're great kids aren't they? And we made them, I mean think about that! It's like there were no people there, and then there were people and they grew, and an an an I won't be able to say to some stranger Josh has your hands or remember how Erin threw up at the Lincoln Memorial And I'll try to relax, let's face it, anybody is going to have traits that get on your nerves, I mean, why shouldn't it be your annoying traits, and I know I'm no day at the beach, but I do have a good sense of direction so I can at least find the beach, which isn't a weakness of yours, it's a strength of mine. And God your a good friend and good friends are hard to find. Charlotte said that in Charlottes Web and I love how you read that to Erin and you take on the voice of Wilber the Pig with such dedication even when your bone tired. That speaks volumes about character! And ultimately, isn't that what it comes down too? What a person is made of? That girl in the pin helmet is still here 'bee boo bee boo' I didn't even know she existed until you and I'm afraid if you leave I may never see her again, even though I said at times you beat her out of me, isn't that the paradox? Haven't we hit the essential paradox? Give and take, push and pull, the yen the yang. The best of times, the worst of times!I think Dickens said it best, 'He could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean', but, doesn't really apply here does it? What I'm trying to say is, I'm saying Chow Funs because, I love you

Ben: Did you hear that kids? Mom wants to go to chow Funs

-from the story of us
my j, will this be our story too? hihi:)

I think its been about three years since my ate came to Manila. Kaya she was wide-eyed amazed sa paligid nya, including sa glorietta.

She insisted on meeting up there instead of somewhere near the condo. She made up all kinds of excuses like she’s scared to get lost so somewhere familiar na lang daw or that it was raining too hard, mahirap bumaba sa alanganin. Yun pala she just wanted to see the malls! Hahaha!
The next day, we went to gateway. She was doubly amazed. How in less than 2-3 years, Cubao could change from being feared to being the ‘it’ place. grabe noh, how this city changes in a year or so.

Actually whenever I go home to naga, I feel the same way. Back then it was just a few fastfood restos like jollibee or mcdo, then came starbucks-inspired beanbag where everyone hangs out. Then theres coffee beanery - in the middle of the elite-looking Avenue Square.

And that also my niece, jenny is finally going to school. How time flies hahaha! My sister and I kept laughing while we bought school stuffs for her, pencil case, eraser, pencils, sharpeners, even panties, and sandos hahaha!

Am watching felicity again. Remember high school? Remember noel… ben… hahahah!

five lovely days.
May 16 – got back from Naga. Thankfully the ride is smooth and comfortable care of Isarog Line Lazyboy. you would feel lazy while in it but emerging from it, energized ka na because it gave you a sound sleep.

May 17 – bday ni jenny. She cried a lot when I left. It breaks my heart to leave her and so much more, to see her that way when I leave.

May 18 – erabella is born at last! Mommy donnnssss pictures please. daddy errol as expected is the proudest dad

May 19 – my j arrives from Mindanao. Now I know why the airport scene is the best place to see that L-O-V-E still prevails. anxious anticipation. Ganun pala feeling when you’re minutes away from seeing a loved one.

May 19 again – home massage. ang sarap. thanks to my housemate, johanne who sold the idea to us. Its super affordable and worth it!

May 20 – my j asked me out on a date. we had dinner at big buddha. got my fave coffee at seattles – javanilla. and went to see spiderman.

May 20 again – his flight (to Mindanao) the next day was postponed.

Sabit sa Caramoan.

Sabit lang ako but here I found myself as excited and as exhilaratingly crazy as them.


How can’t I? The beach is the best I’ve ever seen.
Ang sarap maligo. Ang linis. Ang sarap humiga sa shore. Ang sarap matulog sa beach!



The models
Not bench models but b-e-a-c-h models. I am the ‘unsupervised’, ‘stubborn’ model. but I did try my best kaya I have the widest grin, the least serious look when needed and the least free-flowing act. Hahah!





Thanks to ray. He made a sense out of the whole scenery. Naging doubly majestic, doubly enchanting ung beach – with us around!


Mga sirena.
Its not part our intention na I-outstage sila. It just happened.

My old dorm.
Not that I miss it. Wala lang.

My new room. Yes that’s still my old bulky tv. My old belts. An old pair of pants. But a new bed - a new second hand bed!

the view from my new room.

Not my new roomies but old friends who helped me welcome my new room. Thanks for coming over :) Sayang, they came in late that day, nothing left to unpack anymore or was that the intention?

huling halakhak

yey. ive finally moved in sa new place ko.after a tormenting experience sa old dorm ko, where i stayed for almost 7 years - this new place that i found is proving to be worth all that. parang blessing in disguise. its like a taste of vengeance din. now who's suffering sa heat, lack of light and air, in short poooorrrr ventilation right now?sila! nasa TBD ang huling halakhak bwahahah!:)

ok na po ako Lord, enough tboy-bashing.am moving on:)

glad you're back poisonivy! :)

Look at that smile.

I begged to sleep beside her one night when I was in Naga.
She sleeps with mama (she calls her mommy) and my ate (her ma, who she calls mama) so tucking me in beside her means someone has to sleep somewhere else.

When mama came into the room…
Me : jenny, dito na ako matutulog? Tabi tayo?
Jenny: oo dito ka na, mommy, ikaw san ka matutulog?

Too young to be subtle. Nsa genes kaya? Hihi.

to my gg:
I’ve been too hard on you these days.
And with you being so soft on me despite of that has made me realize, how blessed I am having you.
Here, your fave pic. Save mo na, pang-friendster hihi.

Hope you’ve added me finally. Pleaasssssee. Technically, you said that im not qualified to be your ‘friend’ jan sa friendster because I am more than that to you, but pleaasssseee, I want the world to know I’m part of the world you live in.

“I don’t know how to live in a world where my dad doesn’t”

I cracked in tears when George of grey’s said this.

I think I can say the same to you.

oathtaking ni atty.
i am deeply deeply happy for this guy. i remember him a few months back, he rarely talked about it. sabi nya, he has fully given it up to HIM. bahala na daw SYA. i guess it really is God's will - everything that happens in our lives is all up to HIM.
2 days back, he took his oath with of course his beloved family and close relatives plus meeee.hmmm.unofficially part of the family.

a lot of things happened when i went home for the holy week. dami ko gusto ikwento but my very important resource, time, is scarce. but here, one of the higlights is that i realized how much i missed my ever adorable, chubby niece...nakakagigil...



thats my sister, her mom - strangely slim haha.inaagawan sya ni jenny ng pagkain most of the time so there.

my youngest sister, mama, jenny, and my jojo and his knees.

so happy to have three mushy months with you and looking forward to more...:)

7 things from bali i wish i could bring home :

a hammock by the seashore -in one of those equally grand resorts beside Westin - sarap matulog hmmm

a wooden lamp that lits the stone steps leading to Westin

another lamp along the gardens of another resort

lamp part 3 - nawala wala kami while walking back towards our hotel, these lamps seems to mistify.

bali food, satay, spicy veggies

and desserts! mawawala ba naman.they're similar to our native delicacies (may sapin-sapin, nilupak tagalog ba to?hehe.

and finally, a painting made of balinese coffee