with the exception of finals i've had to suffer through since i entered law school, i've never found myself in the position of having three midterms in one week. i've been lucky, i guess. teachers who give midterms have had this knack of avoiding my classes... rather, i've had the knack of avoiding teachers who give midterms. whatever.

anyway, my brain's pretty much mush right now. i skipped work early friday, allegedly to study but between then and this morning, all i've managed was to get some provisions of the labor code memorized and search through several laws for commercial law definition. i've also managed to:
1. watch the ginebra - san miguel game on television while watching hiram at the same time.
2. watch lovers in paris second time around - saturday AND sunday
3. watch bruce almighty on vcd
4. watch 7th heaven and gilmore girls, then the SCQ grand questor's night.
5. watch csi and a replay of fear factor
6. have lunch with my brother, buy an electric fan and a new pair of shoes
7. have dinner with pat at the new cafe adriatico at westgate

see, my social and tv life is rocking.

which isn't what i can say for my law school career.

where i come from, not everyone is lucky enough to have a godmother wiling to fork over a little more than 5k for a blue fino bag.

fortunately, i am.

so what if my boyfriend thinks it's just yet another bag in my closet and so what if it's blue and hardly matches anything in my closet. so what if buying this bag meant i was unable to buy the lovely mauve shoes with kitten heels from enzo angiolini or meant i probably won't receive another gift until its time for the grand annual christmas shopping spree from my dad's side of the family. so what if pastel colored bags will probably go out of style one of these days and it's probably going to gather molds in my closet sometime in the future.

i've stared at this bag since they came out with it sometime last year. i'm the cause of that rut on the floor fronting all fino display windows, especially the ones in atc and shangri-la. i've contemplated on how this bag will look on my shoulder, on my hands, and on the crook of my elbow more than i've contemplated marrying my boyfriend. i've had dreams where i'd be gallivanting in a mall using this bag. i've put this bag on my "things to have in 2004" list, and i miserably failed in giving my boyfriend hints that this was all i wanted for christmas.

and so, the hell with practicality. i've got a godmother willing to buy it for me and nothing (and no one) could make me stop her from doing it.

i'm my boyfriend's very private foundation

while the rest of the world was busy finding ways of sending their help over to the south asia tsunami victims, my boyfriend was busy finding ways of getting canned good over to me.

with cellphone bills the way they are, plus being a wee bit too excited buying laundry gadgets including a spray-on starch that works miracles, i suddenly found myself very broke way before a pay period. depressed with my financial state, i sent a message to pat telling him of my woeful state, lamenting that i was yet again unable to buy myself oreo cookies with mint and creme filling. being the amazing boyfriend he is, he immediately sent an sms promising to get me pasalubong next time they visit the grocery.

so there i was expecting a box of oreos to come my way when i went home friday. i was so excited that i even contemplated on buying milk on my way home. apparently my boyfriend had other ideas.

he arrived at my house last friday with several canned goods: a can of 50% less sodium spam, two big cans of purefoods corned beef, and a couple of cans of century tuna in a variety of flavors. so you'll never go hungry, sweetie, he said.

aside from your dad, the only other person you'll be truly comfortable with seeing you at your worst would be your brother. he's the person who's probably seen you naked (when it didn't count yet), and the first person you've seen butt naked. he's there to taunt guys you want to be with and scare away guys you don't want to be with.

your brother would be the person who teaches you all about NBA, only to scoff at your great fascination with the LA Lakers and Shaq. he's the guy who teaches you all about wrestling moves, and proceeds to do a demonstration, on you, before your mom thoughtfully puts a stop to it. he's the guy who'd hesitate at first to ask for your fashion advice, but would drag you to every store in the mall in search of the perfect outfit for his graduation.

he's the guy your friends don't begin to like, no matter how hot he is, simply because they know every little thing about him already. he's the guy girls call in the middle of the night (oh how you hate those girls) to befriend.

he's the sweetie who'd drive 34 kilometers to your dorm because you were stupid enough to lock your keys inside the car. he's the person who'd call you after your first bad break up not to console you but to tell you, without mincing words, that you should have listened to him.

he's the one who'd tell you when your favorite outfit makes you fat and the one who'd recommend when it's time to see your manicurist cause your nails are pretty ghastly already.

he's the one who sneaks into your room on saturday nights to watch sex and the city with you. he's the one who lends you money when you're too broke to leave the house. he's the one who laughed at you when you first drove and proceeded to make you drive every single opportunity he can.

see that handsome cutie beside me on the hospital bed? that's my brother. (today he turns 27! happy birthday, kit!)

(this picture is lovingly posted for jason who asked for a picture two years ago when i wrote how amazing my brother was on his birthday in lieu of a gift.)

the parent trap

meet the parents, i must admit, was a funny movie. meeting the parents, in real life, isn't funny at all.

but what's even less funny than that is not meeting the parents at all, even after 9 months of being together.

back in high school, when being in a relationship simply meant holding hands beneath the canteen table and having someone lug your bag for you after classes, meeting the parents wasn't a big thing. in fact, you'd both rather hide the fact that you were in a relationship with anyone, lest that mean your allowance and phone privileges get cut off. back in college, you knew you'd probably meet the parents during graduation or some other school function where you're forced to bring parents to school, provided that such happens after you turn 18 cause god knows parents have that 18 years old or after graduation boyfriend rule that absolutely does not make sense cause i firmly believe that you will have sex when you want to have sex and having a boyfriend has nothing to do with it.

but i digress.

i've been bothered by this fact sometime between our third and fourth month together. see, we live a hundred meters apart from each other, too close not to make time for a meeting. i met his sister a month after we got together (he invited her to watch a movie with us) and i've hung out with his cousins. we had dinner with his friends once and we've brought together one of his friends and one of mine (they celebrated their first month together last saturday!). we're as close as close can be. so i don't get it. why not the parents?

he's told me that his parents aren't comfortable with it, at least not yet. he told me that when the right time comes, it'll happen, but it won't happen in some contrived setting where his mom invites me over for dinner and we make small talk over paella and whatever you serve on contrived dinners such as that.

because of this, my insecurity has been on attack big time. is it cause i look like a teapot (short and stout)? is it cause i'm not prim and proper like his sisters? is it cause his sister didn't like me and has so reported something vile about me (like how i am able to finish popcorn even before the opening credits of the movie)?

i don't know. my aunt says not to mind it, and some of my friends tell me it's his parents' loss they don't get to meet an amazing creature like me (god bless my friends). but at the end of the day, i feel like a nobody, a girlfriend he sneaks the car out to take on a date, a girlfriend only talked about in hushed tones at home.

at 27, more than ten years after i've graduated from high school, i feel like i'm back in high school all over again.

so there we were, gary and i, complaining about the lack of interesting blogs to read.

it seems like people we love have either stopped writing or have begun writing less and less.

and it seems like there are less and less new people to like.

and so he SMSd me one day asking me to update my links since he claims to only read the blogs i put on my links. i replied ok, no problem.

except that there was a problem. with the exception of nikki,there's no one interesting. at least nothing that interested me enough to spend almost an entire day hogging the office pc, going through the archives, and just enjoying page after page of writing.

until today. until this. i know it's so showbiz, and i know it reeks of my inner (former) tabing ilog addiction. but hey, she IS a UP student now and hey, she writes better than some people i know. and yes, i do find her writing refreshing, interesting, and worth every single minute i spent on it.

and you never know when she'll be able to help me meet my forever idol, sharon cuneta. really.

csi miami replay on the tv right now. funny how while i never enjoyed any episode of csi miami, i am loving every minute of this one, if only because it's the transition episode between csi miami and csi new york.

everything is different. the colors are bleak, almost black and white. the characters seem jaded, reminiscent of miranda. the city is still pretty though, the same new york one sees in sex and the city, although this one is grimmy and dirty, somehow heart-wrenching with all the dead bodies and dried blood.

a part of me feels guilty. csi always meant las vegas and the guys over at night duty, and the birth of csi miami did nothing to change that. on the other hand, new york has always been sex and the city and their pretty shoes. maybe, as hbo showed the last satc episode ever, the gods of television felt it was time to merge two of my great tv loves and bring me something new.

what the heck, i'm ready to fall in love again.

i rarely put up pictures here, partly cause i'm too lazy to upload and partly cause i don't think i look too good in pictures.

however, once in a while you get a good pic, not because of how you look in it, but because who you're in the pic with. i'd like to say i relish this picture of me cause i'm with my favorite cousin-in-law but it's really cause i'm with sort-of international superstar allan pineda (who? i know!) of the black eyed peas.




*incidentally, that's my AUTHENTIC coach bag slightly visible. *and yes, i have a huge tummy.

being the shoe monster that i am, no one really needed to explain footwear to me. i take to footwear like a duck to water.

i understood sandals meant having your toenails done on a weekly basis. i know that the for happy feet to fit you best you've to get at least a size bigger so your toes and ankle don't stick out. i know that janylin stilettos are nine west knock-offs. i've created wish lists on-line to direct my dad what footwear to buy. i've bought shoes on a whim and i've bought shoes after contemplating on them for days. i've bought shoes i may never even get to wear simply because they're lovely such as lace-up olive green ballet flats and blue & white wingtips.

which leaves me at a loss as to why i do not understand havaianas.

oh, i've read all the stories - that they're like walking on pillows, that they're what everyone wears in boracay, and that they're my favorite blogger's footwear of choice. i checked the website, hoping to stir in me some excitement over them. i've even convinced other people to buy havaianas.

but when i opened one of my presents and discovered what should've been a beautiful pair of white havaianas, all i could see were glorified spartans.

maybe i'd appreciate them more one of these days. maybe after a day of gallivanting in my new love (a lovely pair of kate spade stilettos) i'd relish sinking my tired feet into my white havaianas. maybe when i finally make it to boracay i'd feel so cool knowing that mine were lovingly ordered by my sweetie from his dad so he can be sure i get authentic ones. maybe i'll grow to love them as much as i love my happy feet.

or maybe you guys can explain them to me.