thought for the day

Maybe at certain moments, it merits checking out the grass at the other side of the fence.

Maybe, sometimes, perception is reality. The statement otherwise just might be the illusion... Not the other way around.. Who's to say the way you see things isn't the way they really are?

Hay.. I don't know if I'm just justifying how I'm feeling, but I just think that there are times when one should assess one's situation relative to others. Not all the time. Just sometimes. At certain moments, for certain issues, in certain contexts... To make certain conclusions.

Dane's baby girl and Dane's chocolates

Went yesterday to visit my friend, Dane, and his wife.. and his new baby! Welcome, Marie Noelle, to the world!

And, another introduction by Dane: The world's creamiest, best chocolates ever!


At first, I thought Dane's gushing was over-the-top-- I mean, c'mon, it can't possibly be that good. Until we had the jetsetting Ronald buy some for us in Singapore...

I finally opened the complicated package ( a box is packed with dry ice, wrapped in plastic and covered in paper wrapper and finally stored in a thick silver foil-looking package), and finally tried 1 choco-powder-dusted little dark-chocolate cube.

Heaven.

Oh my gohd! No chocolate has ever tasted this good!

My Lord! It's pure indulgence-- pure happiness... It melts in your mouth-- you won't know what hit you once you put one of these little cubes of happiness in your mouth....

And that's no overstatement. Believe me.. =)

update!

Sometimes I get culture-shock when I find myself deeply immersed in my boyfriend's world. Such as last weekend.

They had their induction for new brods last Saturday night, and they had this totally elaborate formal affair. As in people dressed up like they do for the prom-- full-on gowns and makeup for the dates and tux and polished hair and shoes for the inductees. But of course, since my boyfriend is one of the barristers, he was not required to dress up. In fact, he was just in shorts and a plain T-shirt. Hehe. My boyfriend-- such the non-conformist. Whatever's comfy, that's what he goes for. =P

Anyway, before the ceremony, they informed Dennis that he was gonna get an award. How cool! It was a presidential citation for extraordinary service to the frat. After learning this, one would expect that he would hastily go back to his room to put on something nicer-- something more befitting an awardee. But no no... My boyfriend pa! He didn't care-- he walked up all confident, smiling and shaking everyone's hands-- and he even wanted to make a speech! Hahahaha! I was laughing my ass off! :)

Hay, finally, it's the last week of the bar exams. I know the stress is piling up now more than ever, especially after that last set of tests... I just pray he pulls through fine... Before we know it, this will be over. And we'll be back to normal.. Well, as normal as normal can be, as one awaits the results to come out 6 months later. =S

Oh, onto other news: Looks like our trip will finally push through (fingers crossed)!! I'm just hoping that the weather will cooperate with us, and that I lose weight enough to look decent in a swimsuit! Waah!... :)

Lastly, I think this dress is gorgeous..... I love the design, the color, the shape-- everything!

un-domestic goddess

My officemates often give me a lotta hell about my un-domesticated-ness.. I can't cook, can barely clean, can't wash clothes, can't iron-- the list goes on and on. At times they'd poke fun at my relatively easy life- about how I've never been required to pick up after myself, or lift as much as a finger to get anything done in the house. They'd tease me that, if left alone, I couldn't fend for myself. I wouldn't be able to survive living alone, if I didn't have the takeout counter, the driver or the nearby laundromat to help me out.

The sad truth is, they're probably right. My mom has even joined the ranks of those who tease me for my non-existent skills at household maintenance. She says whomever marries me is definitely not marrying a housewife. Just a wife.

Hay. I want to start taking cooking lessons soon-- I need to start building my resume for a different sort of a career-- one I'd like to start as fully prepared as I started my professional one. Hopefully, by then, all that my officemates can tease me for is not getting to work on time because I was busy at home. =P

hey, you, people pleaser!

I would really advise you against stretching yourself too thin and being too accomodating... to everybody! I understand the need to belong, the need to be liked and the need to feel comfortable around a certain group of people, but sometimes you just gotta watch your own back.

I find that, for most people, if you allow them to step all over you and take advantage, they will. And, what I find really disturbing is how they would sugar-coat these underhanded tricks by using sweety words and pa-close moves. I really despise such people-- people who think they're so cool and so above-everyone-else that they're entitled to certain favors. And you letting them get away with it does nothing to arm you against their dirty tactics.

Also, I find that people pleasers tend to share too many stories about themselves, (I guess) in an effort to forge immediate bonds and ties with people around them. I would also caution you against that. Resist the urge to share every single detail of every fight, every situation and every secret you have to every person you feel the need to please. Because all that does is give these people (the trust-worthiness of whom are yet to be determined) more ammunition to get the better of you.

I can't believe it, but I've quite possibly found someone more naive than me. Please, I hope you listen to these pieces of advice and choose very well the friends you want to have. It's just one of those things in life where quality totally wins over quantity.

what to do, what to do....?

Do you give up your old life when you allow someone to step into it? Just how much room do you free up for that person, and when you do free that space up, does that mean they have total domain over it? How do you keep the peace yet keep the love?

DH Season 2

I'm so excited! I can't wait!

Caution, this link contains spoilers:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8986378/

balancing act

If I can be really honest, I'm finding it increasingly challenging to balance everybody in my life. As we get older, life becomes more and more a matter of prioritizing and compromising. Keeping everybody happy, while keeping yourself happy, is such a precarious balance... With the simple little tip of the scale, everything can suddenly become uneven, unfair... Everything can turn upside down or go crumbling down, if you're not careful.

Makes me wish I don't have to be an adult. Or that, sometimes, I get a monopoly over my time and my energy... That would make life soooo much easier.

hay nako....

Here we go again.. You've re-entered my life to stir things up yet again, when all along I've written you off and considered you a closed book. Ano beh....

in a few days...

The best boyfriend in the world is about to take his bar exams. Though he may appear calm and collected, I know he's very stressed out and is feeling anxious and fidgety on the inside...

Hence, he was really looking forward to last night-- the send-off party by his fratmates for him and his batch of barristers. The party was jampacked with well-wishing people and, as is typical in all frat functions, overflowing with booze, yosi, and more booze.

Hay.. Only in frat parties do I see such a huge amount of hand-shaking and back-patting. Brods left and right were greeting each other and wishing each other luck, through the customary shaking of right hands and the vigorous hitting of each other's backs.

I met even more people at that party. A portion of the crowd was composed of girls-- who were either girlfriends or dates of the boys. I stayed with these girls on occasions where Dennis would wander off to other people. Some of those girls were from law school too, and they entertained me with stories of their encounters with my boyfriend. The stories were all good, of course, and were usually about how, even if he's suplado, he was always the perfect gentleman.

A lot of guys approached me too, not to hit on me (takot lang nila, ang laki yatang tao ng boyfriend ko! Hehe) but to tell me just how much they love the guy my boyfriend is. They told me various recollections of their experiences together, including the fights they went through and the binds he helped them out of. They told me of countless times when my boyfriend went out of his way to help a friend in need, no matter how inconvenient or problematic the situation. They gave me different testimonies on why they trust him-- with their secrets, with their problems, with their lives..

To-date, I've never felt more proud to love him and to be loved by him than I did at those precise hours. I heard various stories of my boyfriend as a freshman, as a sophomore, junior and senior.. as a friend, as a brod, as a classmate, as a person... All those stories lent me a look at Dennis through the eyes of other people. I felt like I was getting to know him all over again. Every good story, every single praise, made me fall in love with him a little bit more..

By the end of the night, all those stories made me adore him even more for being the person he is, both to me and to others. He's a good guy. Underneath that siga exterior is a very good person.

And he loves me. All of his brods that I spoke with told me the same thing. That no matter how much I believe that he loves me, I'll never fully see just how much I mean to him. And just how big an impact I made in his life.

That's another thing about my boyfriend. He gives justice to the meaning of the word love.

Hay... As I said, he's the best boyfriend in the world.

money, money, money,.... money!

I attended this Citigroup seminar in the office the other day, and learned a whole lot more about investment. It was amazing how, if you compare the interest rate in a regular time deposit account, factor in the current inflation rate in the Philippines, your money can be losing value up to about 5% every day that you keep it in that account. People may think they're saving by keeping their money in bank accounts, but if you consider inflation and the ever-rising cost of living and the ever-plummeting value of our peso, your money is actually spending itself away...

They also touched on mutual funds, bonds and other securities we may be interested to avail of. Being Citibankers, we had the advantage of getting these investment instruments minus the usual brokerage fees. Also, as opposed to entering, say, the stock market on your own and having to monitor the shakes and turns yourself, entrusting your shares to the professionals can save you lots of time and energy.

I happily took in all the info, listing down the products I consider investing in. At first, I wondered how I was ever going to afford to put in enough money to actually 'grow' my moolah considerably. After all, it's not like I'm earning millions every payday.

But, interestingly, when I was doing the math upon getting back to my desk, I realized that about a 10-15% monthly cut from my paycheck can amount to a substantial amount of investment per year. And, at the rate that some instruments go, it's very worth it to get in asap. 10-15% is, interestingly, doable on my part too! I just have to think of it as an 'expense'... like shopping or going out.

Hay, I sooo want to start saving up and making my money grow. I hope this is the start of it :)

sassy!

Saw "My Sassy Girl" for the first time last night. I've heard so many people gush and mush about it, that I tried not to expect too much from the movie. Better to keep expectations to a bare minimum-- I've been letdown by a lot of 'must-sees' in my lifetime...

But, oh my, after watching it.. I must say that I now join the crowd in cheering and clapping my hands gaily at such a great movie! I love it, I love it, I love it! It's feel-good yet sad at the same time-- and the characters are so lovable that you can't help but root for them. The way the story is told was so unconventional-- unlike a typical romantic comedy, you wouldn't be able to predict how it's going to end. So the story just sweeps you away-- when the lights come on to signal the end of the movie, you have to make a conscious effort to regain your breath.

I love it! I love it! I love it!

Spent the rest of my weekend naman with my sassy boy. He's been so stressed about the bar exams (coming up in 2 weeks!) that I treated him to a full-body 60-minute massage at the spa today. Afterwards, we feasted on some really good Japanese food and spent hours just talking and laughing. I tried to crack him up with my clever jokes (i.e. "Ang C2 kaya, binebenta din sa C5?), but he ended up giving the better wisecracks. Oh well, I tried =p

And I tried my best to be the sweet, caring girlfriend this weekend, being the one with the lambing words and sweet gestures (the massage, etc)... but he still stole my thunder as the weekend came to a close. After watching "Must Love Dogs", I playfully teased him, "Will you ever stop loving me, just like Diane Lane's ex-husband?!"

He answered without batting an eyelash, "From the moment you agreed to be with me, I knew for sure I'd be loving you all my life."

Sigh... what did I tell you-- he's my Sassy boy.... =)

a bit of advice...

I wish I can say I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, but I can't. Because the reasons why you've reached this point are as clear as daylight:

1. You have an annoying habit of blowing your stress waaaaay out of proportion. - I think this comes from your competitive streak.. the bad kind where you pull other people down and suck out their energies. You love proclaiming just how stressed you are, with the objective of appearing highly-utilized and thus very important. Ang yabang kasi. Yan napapala.

2. You have a superiority complex. - Mainly an attitude problem, you walk around with your nose in the air and act as if you're better and smarter than everyone else. Hello?! Newsflash: Compare IDs with anyone else in that floor and you'll be reminded of your proper place.

3. You never ask for help. - Linked with # 1 and 2 above, not being willing to acknowledge that you can't handle everything on your own adds to your stress unnecessarily. Not to mention it renders you vulnerable to committing unnecessary mistakes.

4. You don't make friends with people. - To think that you're already in the company of some of the greatest, most fun and most accomodating people ever! What the heck is your problem?!

5. You don't eat. - Starving people rarely make very nice people.

6. You're manipulative. - You know what this means. I don't need to elaborate.

7. You're a brat. - Napagsabihan lang kala mo ano ng nangyari. Welcome to the real world, man. Believe it or not, you've had it soooo easy. You have no idea what else is in store for you. I can't believe how whiny and weak you're being. You give the rest of us a bad name.

Tsk tsk tsk. I strongly advise you to tread carefully and consider your next move. Avoid going down the path of least resistance, especially considering you haven't really tried yet.. at least not completely.

i want...

a Members-Only Jacket!


Check it out at http://www.karmaloop.com/products.asp?ProductID=7740&VendorCode=MEM

the ex-mrs pitt

... is looking quite good. Just saw the trailer of her new movie, "Rumor Has It" at http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf=info&id=1808626158

Can't wait for the Vanity Fair issue with her interview :)

alternative careers

If I had my way, I'd quit my job as a pseudo banker in a heartbeat and shift gears to the any of these Top-3 alternative career paths:

1. interior designer, preferably to the stars (Haha! Dual purpose-- serves both my interests!)
2. host of a lifestyle/ fashion makeover/ celebrity interview type of show (Ala-Look for Less, especially, would be ideal, hehe)
3. socialite-philanthropist with a special bias towards the oldies

back to reality

After two blissful weeks of no work, no stress and no deadlines, I'm going back to the office today =( Back to the daily grind, I guess...

On second thought, I actually broke out while on vacation.. Maybe my system missed the stress and was looking for it?! Hehe... =p

truth in advertising

Calling AdBoard, hello! It's obvious to anybody with half a mind that those shampoo ads violate all truth-in-advertising policies ever created. I swear, I don't know how these materials go through the AdBoard and get approved time and time again. I mean, of course your hair won't bounce like that or look as smooth as that, no matter how many times you use the shampoo. No matter how often you use it or how long, the result will never measure up to what you see in TV. And what's sickening is that all shampoo brands engage in this kind of misrepresentation. Well, the issue about how effective these ads are in the first place is an entirely different matter. I just think that the AdBoard does the public a disservice by letting these flagrant stretches of reality make their way into our TV sets.

end of the road

Ok, officially, starting today, the deal is closed. In fact, it's off. It's better that way anyway. After much deliberation (one of the many good results of this 10-day vacation leave), I decided that this isn't for me. It's not the right move to make, and not the right time to make it either. From the way this all looks, it's better to stay than to go.

Hay. Life is as simple as it is complicated.

volcanic spa day

Went to Pinatubo Spa today. What an unusual spa-- they have a sulfuric acid-infused sauna bath and a matching salted bath, which were supposed to smoothen your skin and (more importantly) cure skin asthma and relieve rheumatism.

My tita brought us there to see if the stuff actually worked... and to relax and have fun as well. It was a long, tiring trip up to that place, and there was no cellsite at all (note to self: should really consider switching to Smart, if only for the cell service in deeply rural areas). But the place surprisingly did not disappoint. The baths were relaxing and did seem to smoothen the skin.. I don't know about curing skin asthma though, as I have no recent attacks to 'heal'. My cousin who does have severe skin asthma says her skin felt better after the treatment, though. So I guess it kinda worked :)

There was another treatment where you get buried in hot volcanic ash (well, your entire body neck-down gets buried) and it's supposed to cure other ailments and pains (I forget what the names are).. I didn't try it though, coz it looked scary. It gets really hot as the ash is shoveled over you, and I bet it gets claustrophobic too. My tito went and said the experience was 'cool'. Eeeer, judging from the heat of the ash.... I beg to differ =p

Afterwards, we all treated ourselves to a hot shower and a Shiatsu massage, which felt really really good. And a hearty dinner, which I'm still digesting 'til now.

An interesting trip overall. Doesn't beat Bora at all, but 'twas a good experience anyway :)