okay. hear me out.

for once, i think i've got a great idea.

see, in the philippines, women are expected to select. men collect relationships: the girl they just bed, the girl for display, the girl they bring home to mom, the girl they take out to gimmicks, the girl they talk to in dark secluded places simply because their girlfriends are phony barbie dolls but they can't bear to be seen with the funny, interesting, witty girl who just happens to look a wee bit like jessica zafra. women can't have that. in a country where the bastard daughter of a priest happens to be the epitome of beauty, grace, and everything that a man should want in a woman, girls are taught early on about how lovely it would be if you were to marry your first boyfriend.

some are lucky to meet "the one" so soon.

others, like me, aren't so lucky.

and so while the question of why you don't have a boyfriend yet is quite irritating, it is equally irritating if people note that you've changed boyfriends for the nth time. they raise eyebrows, squint their eyes at you, and shake their heads in disbelief.

sometimes, you can even see a word flash before their eyes.

w-h-o-r-e.

and so we learn to lie, hide relationships, or pretend some men never really exactly happened in our lives.

and in true catholic fashion, feel guilty about it. very guilty.

now, being one of those women who has had several relationships, good and bad, in her past, i've decided that there must be a solution to this, that somehow, i can look someone straight in the eye and say, "yes, pat is my first boyfriend."

see, in math counting theory, you have to assign one number per object being counted. pat=one.

in math you can go forward. but we won't want that, right, cause if we do that, pat would not be boyfriend number one.

there are three ways of counting: counting on, counting backwards, and skip counting.

if we count on, again, pat won't be boyfriend number one. if we skip count, definitely pat will not be number one, it might be pat=1,234,567 and we definitely don't want that.

we can however count backwards, now there's the possibility of pat=one.

and then you remember that numbers don't end in zero, numbers can go into negatives, and we all agree that ex-boyfriends no matter how much we loved them then are definitely no-nos right now. no=negative therefore ex-boyfriend=negative number.

therefore if i want pat=one, i must count backwards from one to determine what number a particular ex-boyfriend was, for example, the martian=-1.

and pat will always be boyfriend number one.

i make wishes, a lot of them.

i wish for jimmy choo shoes and narrower feet. i wish i had dainty toenails instead of the weird ones i have. i wish my hair would be shampoo-commercial worthy and that i find "dawn" the only bading who did no wrong to my hair.

but they're wishes and wishes like the ones i make rarely come true, especially since i don't have a fairy godmother.

still, sometimes, i get odd wishes coming true.

for example, way back in 2001, in my second semester in law school, i wished for a break. i wished for a break where i can sleep all day for a week and not feel guilty about it.

true enough, i got it.

one week, slept all i could without feeling guilty. the only thing was that it came in the form of chicken pox.

almost a month ago, in the middle of a three-hour traffic with the special birthday cupcakes i got for the pilot near melting point already and my nerves frayed like anything, i wished for things around me to just stop being difficult. i wished that either my masters degree just finished itself or that my work just get a wee bit lighter, or that law school become less of a burden. i wished that i don't break down, not when law school has almost ended, but that i see things through.

last week, my boss called me to her office, and she told me that i can forget about my thesis.

i nearly choked.

i've always been afraid of the consequences. me having to pay for what they spent on me as a scholar, me losing my job, me being a failure.

except that it turned out i didn't have to worry about anything, except the fact that i'll never get to add M.A. after my name. i'm being set free. the only thing they ask of me is that i fix everything before i leave in march.

and that i consider their offer to teach this summer.

god works in mysterious ways. but he does work.

and sometimes, that's all one needs to keep the faith.

i've got the morning routine of gnat and sometimes that gets me worried.

see my internal plumbing tells me i'm a girl, and so does my intense love for shoes, bags, and shopping in general. before i fell madly in love with the pilot, i used to rubberneck when a good-looking guy passes by. i do like pink and flowers and frilly stuff. so i know, i am a girl.

but my morning routine, especially compared to that of my roommate, gets me worried.

i can be ready in 30 minutes. leisurely preparation for me would be 45 minutes, tops. to straighten my hair in the morning using a flat iron would take another 15 minutes, and 15 minutes only because i get tired and bored after 15 minutes so usually i end up with one side flat and the other side fluffy. i've got my morning routine down to a science.

my dear roommate, on the other hand, takes eons. today, we both had to be more or less ready by six. she woke up at four. i woke up at 5:30. she was still wrapped in a towel by 6. i was out the door by six. i was too lost in dreamworld to figure out what she did exactly between the time she woke up and the time i woke up, but i know that although we entered the bathroom the same time, by the time she was done, all i had to put on were my shoes.

one day maybe i'll just bubble up if i get caught in a downpour. but as long as i make sure i scrub properly even those places where the sun don't shine, i think i'm okay.

i haven't received any complaints. yet.

too much of l.a. law (yeah, i am old enough to have watched l.a. law on television), ally mcbeal, the practice, and legally blonde has convinced me that i was meant to be a lawyer. add to that the fact that i got through lae (law aptitude exam) and the interview with nary a hitch plus the next four years of more or less uneventful life as a student in the college and you've got a girl who was sort of excited (but majorly scared still) to do her first court appearance.

dress suit. check.
stockings. check.
pumps. check.
case folder. check.
questions for direct examination. check.
supervising lawyer. check.

and oh. MAJORLY POWERFUL DEODORANT TO STOP ARMPIT SWEATGLANDS FROM DRIPPING DUE TO TENSION. check. check. check.

but god.

i stuttered.
i stammered.
i forgot grammatical rules i've had down pat since grade school.
i blinked so many times it felt like i was making googoo eyes with the judge.
i forgot my alphabet during the marking of exhibits that the clerk of court had to remind me that what comes after "d" is "e" and not "f".

still, i think it turned out okay.

i may not be a kick-ass lawyer, at least not yet, but i do have got the loud voice to match the one of the defense lawyer down pat.

so yeah, the lakers lost.

so what if everyone - non-lakers fans included - have been telling me that the finals is just a perfunctory affair cause whoever really wins the spurs-lakers game would be the champions?

so what if they have a powerhouse for a line-up?

my boys lost. and i'm feeling really down, pretty much the same way i felt after the phoenix suns lost.

bleah.

go figure.

i'll just go buy shoes. shoes are always a good thing.

along with the million other people in the mid-90s, i also fell in love with rivermaya's 214. i had a huge crush on bamboo, which meant that i had the tape sleeve with his picture enlarged, photocopied the image what must've been around ten times and taped his face all over my dorm room wall. i listened to the song over and over again until part of me wished the dorm manager assigned me to room 214, instead of 117. i got into pseudo-intellectual discussions on whether 214 meant february 14 or "am i real" (the first three words of the song).
i was hooked. i was addicted. i was in love.

and i was absolutely faithful to bamboo. for me, rivermaya, without its weird, bald lead singer was not rivermaya. forget the fact that more than enough people have said that rico blanco was the creative genius behind the band. no bamboo, no rivermaya.

except that creative genius rico blanco, alleged boyfriend of kc conception (but that's another story altogether but i just had to squeeze that in), came up with balisong. the lyrics were beautiful, the melody was beautiful, and when i heard him sing "never in my life have i felt more sure, so come on up to me and close the door, nobody's made me feel this way before, you're everythin' i wanted and more," i felt that he and i were in the same lovelorn but quite happy state.

so rico, you may be stick thin, you may not exactly make me swoon, not even with amazing songwriting skills, but if you rock the world of the mega's daughter, then i'd be willing to be a fan. for now.

clothes whore

i may walk like a guy, drive like a crazed lunatic, love basketball like any male fanatic, have the morning routine of a five-year-old schoolboy but never let anyone tell you that i do not love shoes, clothes, and bags like any decent girl does.

cause i do. i really do.

which is quite surprising how ever since i was entitled to a clothing allowance for work, i've never used it to buy clothes. in years past i've used it to buy law books, a spiffy bright planner from fino, and countless other stuff that definitely weren't clothes.

this year, i made a resolve. it's not often that anyone gets P3,000 (i know it's not much but still, for someone broke like me, it is a LOT of money!) in cash for clothes. this year, the clothing allowance will go to, well, clothes.

armed with my atm, no sale at the mall, but very definite ideas as to how i will use my money, i left the house at 1030 to make it to the mall a little past opening time.

my mom may not be proud of how her daughter used to think she was a boy, but she will definitely be proud of how i made good use of my P3,000 bucks shopping.

i've got 5 new tops and 2 pairs of pants. i could have somehow squeezed in a pair of pink shoes on sale (lovely lovely pink shoes i've always wanted to buy and is now on 50% off and fit me perfectly!) but i had to get some kikay stuff too.

i'd like to think i did pretty good with my 3k.

update!
in the wake of yet another loss by the lakers, and because i am tired of explaining to people that it's all about keeping the finals on for as long as possible to generate more income, i found someone who writes WAY better than i do to explain it in detail.

sitting pretty

education students dread practicum.
med students dread internship.

up law students dread the office of legal aid internship.

the summer interns looked like they haven't had any sleep the entire summer. usually happy, chirpy people, with the exception of this guy, were literally biting our heads off. our supervising lawyer -- who i know is amazing with international law and stuff -- looked like a huge flake with a piluka but seemed like fun to work with. it was our first duty day and there was so much to do. finally, after four years of slaving (well, sometimes. i AM a terrible student, i know) over law books, i was finally going to have a taste of "lawyering".

some of my groupmates worked on case assignments. others got their first chance of interviewing.

i got the chance to play receptionist for a day. yes. i worked my ass off for the last four years to be able to send myself to law school and the first thing i ever did under rule 138-a was to sit on a high swivel chair and say "good afternoon, po. ano pong kailangan nila?"

if you don't know me by now...

1. i am rosa.

2. i am 27 years old.

3. i actually love school, although i hate the studying part. the longest i've been out of school since i started studying was 8 months, but that doesn't really count cause i was a teacher so technically i was still in school.

4. i'm in 5th year law school in UP. i'm in the evening class, which means i work in the morning. i'm not the best student there is, in fact, i'm probably the worst kind (i don't memorize and i actually get to sleep the night before the exams soundly even if i still have half of the material to learn!) but i'm thankful i've survived, so far.

5. i need to lose weight. i don't pretend to diet, cause really, i do not have the willpower to resist certain foods but i've managed to get by with half a cup of rice a day.

6. i used to love daisy chocolate milk. during summer vacations when i stay with my aunt in teacher's village, we used to walk every afternoon to eunilane to buy one for me. my aunt's still there, and so is eunilane, but daisy's gone out of the market already.

7. i'm not ashamed to admit i like britney spears, sharon cuneta, and am in love with bernard palanca. i've run across duty free waving my pen and paper to get alvin patrimonio's autograph. i've considered asking imee marcos if i can have my picture taken next to her (as long as borgy's in the pic too!). and yes, i do watch the buzz every sunday.

8. i don't think i'm a good driver. i drive fast and am a bit careless. i don't think i step on the brakes as much as i need to and i'm not very good at estimating spaces between cars in traffic. i have, however, mastered the art of parking rear first.

9. in spite of my utter lack of singing ability, i used to "create" songs. i made a song about snoopy for my aunt (which she remembers to this day!) and a song about my melody which my dad hated so much cause i'd sing it in a high-pitched voice inside a very small car all the time.

10. i'm a laker's fan. he he.

go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers

i must admit, every once in a while, i turn into a fan, albeit a very bad fan. i'm a sharonian, but i almost always wait for her movies to be shown on cable instead of paying good money to see them. i'm a britney fan, but the closest i've ever had to owning any britney product are my pirated copies of the crossroads vcd and the britney live in las vegas dvd. the closest i've ever come to supporting alvin patrimonio's career is buying huge amounts of purefoods corned beef which i horde inside my dorm locker.

but there is no one who can make me stop - the pilot included - gloating about our win today.

go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers go lakers

*on a lighter note, victor neri - who my mother has a huge crush on - is an incoming freshman at our school and guess who got to stand beside him in the elevator? ka-cheap-an, i know, but i'm a filipino and i must admit that no matter how washed-out an actor's career is already, one way or the other, we can't help but be star-struck still, right?

dear mrs. p,

you don't know me, at least not yet, but i've heard so much about you. he says you're such a great mom, and having known your son for four months now, i must agree. i mean, come on, you raised a wonderful boy.

however, this letter isn't all about you. it's all about something miraculous you did 27 years ago, and i want to thank you for it. see, 27 years ago, i think you gave birth to the person who currently rocks my world.

first i must thank you and mr. p for having wonderful genes. i've dated some pretty amazing boys in the past, but i've never dated someone amazing who came with good genes. sometimes i just stare at your son, especially when he's across the room and shake my head cause i couldn't believe someone as handsome as him fell in love with me. (although i sometimes i feel like aliping sagigilid well, just cause he's too gorgeous and i'm not).

thank you also for sending him to flying school. thank you for helping him fulfill his dreams. now, i've no question he'd be a good provider. thank you for teaching him also about love and fidelity through your example, because i know that although i may be dating a pilot, i'm dating someone who doesn't bed the flight attendants.

thank you for choosing to live near my house. technically, you were there way before we were, but thank you nonetheless. thank you for providing him with a lovely home that he never thought of leaving it.

thank you for hating some of his exes. well, this may be mean but at least that kept him single until i finally met him.

respectfully yours,
rosa

tail tucked between my legs, i'd have to post that the lakers lost game one of the finals.

the all-too powerful team that SHOULD be embarrassed to have lost, lost.

darn it. the few who dared SMSd to remind me that my team lost, wasting their homecourt advantage, by 12 effing points.

but, being the daughter of a mother who spend half her life cheering for jaworski, i've got some baranggay ginebra blood flowing in me (though i never liked the team)and so much in the same way thousands of children weaned on '90s PBA basketball believed in distrito, samboy, mamaril, and the rest of jawo's motley crew, i believe that the lakers will make a comeback and win this championship just yet.

and why not? are your memories too short that you've forgotten the semis already?

getting a five

with the exception of a six-month interval when i was working for this shitty pre-school, i've been virtually inside a classroom as a student since i first set foot inside one way back in nursery. although i won't admit it to a lot of people, i actually enjoy going to school. i love the fresh notebooks and school supplies, i love opening a new book and putting the first fluorescent orange highlight on a pristine white page, i love the expectations one starts a semester with.

what i hate, however, are the grades. i realize grades are important, authentic assessment research notwithstanding, but grades and i, especially in law school, have this way of not being in the very best of terms.

in college, i managed to avoid the hateful five in my transcript by realizing early on what i'm good at and by accepting that i may not necessarily be that well-prepared for a degree as a molecular biologist. i promptly identified four courses i may want to shift into, chose one, and fell in love with it. i graduated near the top of my class, with a couple of job offers, and an invitation to take my master's degree in a very expensive school in ortigas for free.

now, six years from college graduation, four years into law school with one more to go, i found myself faced with something i had never faced before:

a five.

a teacher who i initially admired for his good looks, later hated for his overconfidence in himself, and barely saw the entire semester gave me a five.

the initial shock felt like walking into a brick wall. after that wore off, i thanked god that at least it was a subject i really didn't really learn much from (hence taking it again should at least prove a learning experience) and it was from a teacher i didn't really grow to respect and admire. i thanked god i go to up law school where tuition fee is P300 per unit meaning i would have to shell out only P900 to take the same subject again this semester.

they say that your first year in law school will humble you sufficiently. they were wrong. it's your first singco that will do that to you.

this coming schoolyear is some sort of biggie for me. i am supposed to ...

... finish law school by march 2005
... finally finish my MA by june 2004(god-willing!)
... teach a class i've never taught my entire life
... handle 13 practicumers scattered in the pasig-san juan-mandaluyong-quezon city area
... pretend to have learned something in my four years in law school while in OLA (office of legal aid)
... make sure that i graduate on time.

needless to say, i am scared shitless. my last semester wasn't exactly the best semester of my life. i think with the exception of my second semester in law school, this one is the worst i've ever had. i haven't set foot in law school since i submitted my last requirement, am absolutely not confident with any of the exams i took, and therefore am scared of being faced with my true copy of grades when i go there for enrollment later.

sometimes i am great at pretending that i'm doing very well. sometimes, i am even able to convince myself that i am a superwoman and am actually capable of doing everything on my checklists. but ultimately, when i find myself plastered in bed by ten and unable to even dream as i sleep, i get scared and realize that at 27, i have to color regularly to hide the white hairs on my head and have lost an ovary probably due to stress.