prayers will be appreciated.

food too.

so please attend masses for the next four sundays and keep me in mind.

and if you find yourself somewhere in the vicinity of sheraton the next couple of weekends, send food over.

and, if you do these, i will love you for the rest of my natural life.

p.s. i love kfc, by the way, and don't drink coke. fyi. ha ha.

p.p.s. i've promised to give up the mall for a month, but i've been assigned to the gokongwei building. you think if i sneak over a shopping session at robinson's the gokongwei spirit will appreciate it, send over powerful memory enhances, and empower me while i take the bar? malabo, no?

p.p.p.s. golda's having diether dreams. me, i dream i was beat up by the nicest grand-aunt i have. the bar's killing me slowly.

p.p.p.p.s. stress aside, i seem to have gained weight. waaaah.

there's more than just a little imelda in me

... and with two new pairs added to the pile of shoes lining our hallway, i know at the back of my mind why god had ordained it that my parents are ordinary employees instead of being public servants.

still, lest you believe that i'm just all about shoes, and nothing more, i decided to actually do the survey pam tagged me with.

what are things you enjoy doing even when there's no one around you?
laughing out loud over something funny on the television. pretend to be a cooking show host and talk to myself while preparing lunch or dinner. walk around the house in a new pair of shoes.

what lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level?
surprise bouquets of flowers. blogging. sleeping. baking. shopping. driving like a madwoman with no care in the world whether i arrive at my destination or heaven at the end of it all.

7 things that scare you.
failing the bar.
growing old alone.
losing my family.
losing spike.
finding out i can't have kids.
waking up and realizing i'm actually stupid.
frogs and rodents.

7 things you like the most.
shoes in all shape and sizes EXCEPT platform shoes.
hand-me-downs from my aunt.
snail mail meant especially for me.
bouquets of pink gerberas.
pens and papers.
holding hands, hugging, and kissing a special someone for the very first time.
lovely text messages when you expect them the least.

7 important things in your bedroom.
my books - both for law and for entertainment.
a ginormous hello kitty that reminds me of the better days.
shoes, bags, and clothes (in that particular order!)
my laptop.
my bed (and the many memories that go with it!).
my aunt's omega constellation. it's on loan but i've claimed it for life.
this tiny chest made of hard paper which contains a slip of paper with alvin patrimonio's signature, the plane ticket to the singapore trip i earned from my aunt and other important memorabilia.

7 random facts about you.
i have shoes whose sizes range from 7 to 9. either the sizing in the philippines is really bad or i was that desperate to get a shoe i really wanted.
one eye is 250, the other is 450. it comes from reading on one side according to the optometrist.
i wear my watch on the right even if i'm right handed.
the best way to determine if i've slept well or not is if i've drooled on my pillow.
long before there was csi, i had to content myself with medical detectives and crime night on discovery channel.
i learned how to write in script way before i could write in print, thanks to the authentic montessori school i went to.
my first boyfriend became my boyfriend on account of stupidity. i didn't think saying "i love you" back meant that i'd have to be his girlfriend after that. moreover, i didn't even love him back. it just seemed like the right thing to say when someone tells you i love you. to this day i blame sweet dreams.

7 things you plan to do before you die.
go to europe.
wear a two-piece string bikini with no shame.
walk down the aisle of san agustin church in the arm of my dad, wearing edgar allan and jimmy choo shoes, towards the man i will spend forever with.
pay off my car, buy a house, and acquire real furniture.
learn how to cook adobo and sinigang.
appear in court not as law intern rosa but as atty. rosa.
ensure my immortality by either writing a book, having kids, or planting a tree.

7 things you can do.
backfloat. (not swim, mind you, but float only).
race my car against male drivers along the streets of metro manila, and win.
love unconditionally.
stay in bed all day with a book, so long as it's not for school.
wrap presents beautifully.
plan outfits (mine and others) in my head without having to check the closet.
be the first to say sorry.

7 things you can't do.
swim.
drive slowly.
keep my mouth shut.
resist shoe shopping.
fall in love with someone who doesn't fit the checklist. (believe me, i tried).
study non-stop for more than an hour.
believe someone can remain committed after he's asked for space. a separation, no matter what you call it, is still a separation. period.

7 things that attract you to the opposite sex.
good teeth.
amazing conversation.
stability.
the way he makes me feel when we're together.
education.
the way he carries himself, no matter how he good or bad he actually looks.
whether or not i can imagine myself waking up next to him for the rest of my natural life.

7 things you say the most.
"yeah yeah"
"puta"
"what the f?"
"wait lang"
"don't know, don't care"
"miss, magkano?"
"do you have this in 7 or 8?"

7 celeb crushes.
johnny depp
bernard palanca
wendell ramos
dave navarro
brett michaels (lead singer of poison. so glam rock, but so hott.)
orlando bloom, but only as legolas.
aubrey miles <-- hindi ako tibo, but promise, crush ko talaga.

7 people that you want to take this quiz.
anna.
gary.
ara.
nikki.
psychicpants. <-- because i miss reading you, and because you've always amazed me with your wit. promise.
uh <-- i know you don't take quizzes but i'm amazed by you, so there.
calvin.

being the mall rat that i am, the mall has never intimidated me.

never, and that never includes that time when i found myself lost in bangkok with my cellphone back at the hotel and without that little card which everyone told me to carry around just in case i got lost. i simply shopped, shopped, and then shopped some more until i was ready to stop panicking then i whipped out the map from my bag and tried to make sense of where i was and how to get back to the little dot that was my hotel.

i thought that as a bar review, i was pretty much ahead of the "mall" thing - meaning i get to go to the mall on a regular basis. it also didn't quite help that in the beginning i used to study while waiting for my brother in the mall, then eventually, i began studying in the ateneo library which was a hundred meters from the mall. the mall - much like the way cigarettes were to others - my last connection with sanity. no mall, not even ever gotesco in commonwealth (which so so reminds me of easy, my third favorite seatmate in the whole wide law-school universe), can ever attempt to scare me out of my wits.

but then yesterday was a different matter altogether.

i went to the mall with one purpose in mind: get food, get money, and shop. and for once, it was necessarily in THAT order.

however, i took one look at the huge sale signs in front of the stores and the fact that i hadn't eaten anything all day, save for a small bowl of soupy snaxx went out the window.

and so i checked shoes out, mentally tagged those i wanted to buy, and made a mad dash to the atm.

and the line was long.

and so i decided to eat first, cause i was feeling faint.

and the line was long.

and somehow, for the first time in my life, i got so disoriented in the mall. a mall, which in the past, i had memorized like the back of my hand.

i don't know if it comes from the fact that the bar is a week away. or, it comes from the guilt that one gets when looking at still unhighlighted pages of commercial law review. maybe i just feel guilty cause i know that i don't need another pair of shoes.

but what the f*ck, i'm not going to let that experience cower me into submission.

mothership, here i come.

p.s. thanks calvin for giving a whole new meaning to blogging via phone.

with the days between now and ofmyfuckingshitit'sthebaralready getting fewer, i've began asking myself more and more why i went to law school.

i can only come up with three ideas:
(1) i listened to a friend who said i was being wasted taking up an MA that didn't have "bragging" rights;
(2) i wanted to lose the weight i gained dating this guy; and
(3) i wanted a job that will enable me to buy my own car in the future.

now, seeing that i have bought my own car, and that i've stopped dating that guy (but haven't lost the weight, damn him), and screw bragging rights, i absolutely don't know why i'm here.

as one girl aptly put it, nagpadala lang tayo sa agos ng law school.

and really. unlike other people who arrive at the end of the line with a clear sense of purpose (and a very very organized study schedule) i attacked the bar examinations with no other goal except the need to finish reading all the books i bought.

golly. i attack the mall with a greater sense of purpose than that.

which brings me to this incessant need (as in NOW NA!) to go to mothership and buy:
(1) white pointy flat shoes
(2) gold peep toe flat shoes
(3) gold bag.
purchases which i could have made last monday but i listened instead to a friend who believed that it would be in my best interest to wait for sideline salary, which if sister of sideline partner does her task, should be in my bank account by tomorrow at the latest.

which means i can sort of afford to buy all of those.

and survive until lola gives me my allowance for september. which makes me a mean kid, seeing that i survive on lola's allowance at 28 while using sideline money to pay for worldly goods that i don't exactly need.

but i want. and ergo, necessary for well-being. after all, as one classmate said, no need to unnecessarily stress one's self before the bar.

which brings me to a request i made to a friend, a friend who decided to malign me in the sweetest way possible in his blog today. dude, i want something non-consummable and non-fungible from you. enough food. mataba na ako. as i've told you countless of times - 7 1/2. listen, run to the mall, and buy.

and oh, that jacket, i need that jacket. malamig daw sa la salle.

now, there's really no point at all to this post, and i don't really know why i wrote all these, but i did, and i don't want to delete.

p.s. if you were from go! internet and i wailed/complained/got mad/got frustrated/gave you the evil eye in my mind sometime the last couple of days. i'm sorry. my computer hates you, i don't know why, but i was finally able to connect using my brother's pc. sorry.

p.p.s. favorite cousin - wala na yung shoes with pearls!!!! waaaah. i looked and looked and looked. someone must've had the same taste as the two of us.

if you've ever lived in a village like mine where your neighbors are so close they're bound to hear your god-awful version of "i will survive" should you decide to sing it, then you would have probably had the unfortunate experience of discovering things which belong to your neighbor in your backyard.

and being the good neighbor you are, you probably, without thinking, would just toss it right back into their yard without even thinking twice. that's the neighborly thing to do: not to make a big deal out of it and just regularly toss things right back into their yard.

this morning's foray into our backyard revealed something a bit more interesting than the usual pile of basahan .

our neighbor had - somehow - deposited a huge (as in as tall as a three-year-old kid) silver mylar balloon in the shape of the number "8".

i must admit it made me smile and i must admit it made me feel quite happy to see that ginormous balloon in our laundry area.

and you know what? who cares if some kid who had just turned 8 is missing his balloon from yesterday's birthday party. this time, it's finders keepers.

i can't believe my ipod mini is slowly dying on me.

one day it was fine, it was bubbly. it spewed out songs like there was no tomorrow.

and then one day, i charge it, then play it for a bit, and with the battery at the 3/4 full mark, it gave me the message that i gotta plug it to a power source. it flickered, giving me a couple more seconds of music then i flashed, what to me, is the equivalent of the dirty finger.

i saw the apple with a bite.

being the obedient girl i was, i charged it. i didn't even cheat and listen to music while charging it, nor did it satisfy myself with an 80% fast charge. i left it plugged on until the battery icon stopped scrolling.

happy, i put it in my bag, drove to school, and sat down ready for a couple of hours of unadulterated happy listening while pretending to read corpo law. i got through around 40 pages of corpo.

however, i didn't get through 40 songs.

the ipod mini that promised me 18 hours of happy beautiful lovely music sputtered and died after two hours. that's two hours people. two short hours. and that meant for the next couple of hours i had to listen to people sputtering, wheezing, and memorizing under their breaths.

and i had to see others happily listening to their own ipod minis.

i went home. with a frustration level that high, no amount of your crush's presence, phone boy's messages, and "pity" looks from your friends can make a difference.

a couple of theories have come to mind.

do i suck out energy from my ipod in order to get through corpo?

did it protest over being named buffy?

does it hate me for thinking of loading it up with britney songs?

did it feel neglected since i haven't been studying recently and it had, therefore, sat in my bag, unattended, for a while now?

or did it get mad that i haven't plugged it into i trip lately and have, instead, been listening to star fm. (i'm tacky i know! but admittedly they do have the best karaoke songs at night!!!)

theory or no theory, i know that i have one week of studying plus four pre-week reviews to plow through. i've still got a lot of reading down, and without my certified tacky songlist blaring through my ears, i don't know how i'll get through the stress that bar brings.

and so, buffy, i'm making a deal with you.

i can rename you. i can take out the songs you hate. i will even study first thing in the morning to the last minute at night. i'll take you to bed like i used to and listen to you in the car instead of, well, singing with star fm's tacky songs. i'll even - and this is a biggie - really study while listening to you in the lib.

and i promise. no more forwarding through songs, no more abusing you and your niceness by just stuffing you in my bag.

just do not die on me. i am so not ready for another break-up right now.

one of the most awkward things i ever had to do in high school involved standing up in class and declare to the entire world who my best friend was. it's awkward not cause i didn't have one but because i must have a couple of best friends at that time.

isn't it ironic? best friend, and there were three of them.

and the funny thing is they aren't even exactly friends with each other.

now, high school ended four years ago and one of those best friends had sadly passed away, another's in canada and is awfully rich busy and another's married with a kid and so is, well, busy too and so here i am left with no one to call my best friend.

not that you need the label, really, but you know what i mean.

well, the lack of a best friend never really bothered me until i realized i am 12 days away from september and that given my lack of a sorority, an organization, and a significant other plus the fact that my mom had conveniently forgotten her promise that she'd be my bar buddy, means that those four sundays will make me not only scared shitless but the saddest i've ever been in a while.

of course i had people promise me a lot of things. that they'd be there for me, or that they'd be my runners, or that they'd make sure i was okay. and i nodded yes, and said thank you, and said i'd count on you for that okay but i knew at the back of my mind that their lives will go on and that they'd forget september and the bar and that somehow they don't really know all the shit i'm going through right now.

except you. you didn't make promises. you just told me that you'd take care of breakfast and would make sure that i have lunch. you told me not to worry and that while freshly squeezed orange juice might be a problem, purefoods corned beef four sundays in a row wouldn't.

with you, i don't need a label.

i don't even need anything.

i know so.

totally mean, totally crushing, totally something that shouldn't be written online, but was written anyway.

and spineless me didn't have the heart to throw it out.

would spandau ballet make you gay?

when asked why i did my review at ateneo instead of up, i'd always say it was because i was on the hunt for some hottie to replace the ex with. of course, that was only partly true, but come on, i've always wanted to date a blue blood. and as we all know, the proportion of hotties to non-hotties at the ateneo is way way better than that in up.

as they say, we got the brains, but we sorely lost out on the looks department.

the first couple of days in ateneo was sorely disappointing. the auditorium was filled to the brim with men (and women, but they didn't count. they were competition!) but none of them even came close to being crush worthy. i was, no pun intended, crushed.

but then some of the people stopped attending and classes began and so i was able to finally, finally zero in on some cute guys.

among the hundred or so cute guys, there was this cute guy that i liked and he was really nice and it didn't hurt that he did the up-ateneo combo (up undergrad, ateneo law). think a shorter raymond bagatsing. he was friendly and we made small talk every now and then and while he wasn't the guy that was on everyone's radar (harry potter - of the sipag boys - is THE guy to crush on apparently), my friends agreed that he will do.

bar boy, they said. someone to inspire you to attend the hundred or so lectures and go to the library and to resist eating that pint of ice cream for. a bar boy is way better than bar weight.

so bar review went ok, and aside from occassional lapses in judgment, i think i was pretty good in attending the lectures (but not in keeping up with my readings). and we threw each other smiles and little nods and the occassional side comments (ang bastos talaga ni justice, but funny!). life was swimmingly going well in bar boy crush land until one day, he noticed my hair color.

burgundy, he asked.

and then he noticed my eyebrows.

these must be difficult to maintain, he commented.

and then came the final straw.

after i sent him a text message declaring that johnny depp, to date, remains to be the hottest man on the planet, he replied, agreeing wholeheartedly to my comment and when pressed, gave me a filmography of johnny depp citing why this man is the timeless hottie that tom cruise will never be.

i was shocked, i was stupefied, i was ....

... i think i was crushed. after all, as pam pointed out, men know only one syllable colors. burgundy, and other three-syllable colors, is something men don't mess with.

i tried to let go of the possibility that i had developed an innocent crush who may be as into guys as i was. after all, maybe he just noticed my eyebrows cause he wanted to come near. and maybe he just agreed with the johnny depp observation to be agreeable. and burgundy, well, he may just have a really wide vocabulary.

but this moring, he SMSd, totally excited, that spandau ballet just came out with dvds of their old concert. and for some weird reason, it struck me, that this guy may, unfortunately for me, be gay.

things that cross my mind as i study in the library

we <3 the sipag boys

in UP, with the exception of ate con, the library never really held any allure for me. it was just a place one goes to to either borrow the bar review questions for an exam or to get cases and photocopies, and once in a blue moon, to actually study. god knows my legal bibliography teacher tried his darn best to teach me what "shephardize" means. unfortunately, all i ever picked up on it was the knowledge that it meant me going to the second floor.

and the second floor, with all those serious law students, isn't really the place you'd expect to see me in.

the ateneo professional schools library, on the other hand, is a different matter altogether. that electronic thing-a-ma-jig where you swipe your ID to gain entry, in my honest opinion, is more fun than words. (i swear that sometimes i go out just to get the thrill of having to swipe my ID as i go in. i'm shallow, i know!). there's also the pocket gardens where you can answer the phone while surveying the environment. there's the free internet - which i've yet to use - and the mezzanine reserved for bar reviewees. there's the swivel chairs and the outlets for charging your ipod and phones right smack there on your table as you study.

then there's the sipag boys: harry potter, one banana boy, the guy with a girlfriend, the guy who's friends with everyone, apple, feeling-head-kahuna-but-isn't ...

*sigh*

the sipag boys. no, scratch that. the HOTT sipag boys. darn. these men aren't just smart, they're HOTT.

makes me want to go to the lib every single frigging day of my life.

makes me wish it were may all over again and i picked up the library habit earlier.

makes me thank god and all the angels and saints that they're sipag boys and they're in the library every single day.

makes me - the totally lame bar reviewer - want to end this post now to hustle over to the library and begin staring at the sipag boys and try, albeit unsuccessfully, to read commercial law.

things i wish someone told me while i was in law school

1. codals are your friend. yes, it's okay to spend time reading the commentaries, and yes, you do have to read the cases, but codals, you gotta read the codals.

2. the bar is real. midterms and finals are nothing compared to the reality of the bar.

3. OLA, if taken seriously, will be your friend if you've coasted by law school with crappy remedial law teachers.

4. don't just cut and paste your legal forms. read, understand, and when desperate, memorize.

5. review classes, boring as they may be as electives compared to CSI, will be the best thing you can do for yourself.

6. don't mind the crappy teachers. forget the fact that they don't teach crap. study. study. and when you're really tired and cranky and hateful, study some more.

7. "coasting" through law school, while possible, is stupid.

8. it's just five years (or four, if you're in the day class). it's not going to kill you if you hide under a rock and forget shopping for a while.

incidentally, no one also told me that apparently, i had dated two guys from law school the five years i was there. wow.

don mclean*

you're a world class ass, and everyone else thinks so too.

but what they don't know is that you'd wake me up at 6:30 to tell me to get started studying. they don't know that you not only know how to cook corned beef but surprises that involve corned beef as well. they don't know that you'll drive the 34 kilometers between here and UP Diliman to make sure that hotel dues are paid and the chocolate donuts from cello's are bought and delivered. you spoil me, and that's not even the half of it.

they don't know that you can tease me so, me and my so-called cabanatuan accent when i speak in english. they don't know that you're the type who'd mock how a girl says "bag" and "sandwich" and "water" and "center" and force her to say these words over and over again until both of you are having the biggest laugh of your lives. they don't know that you enjoy my attempts at a british accent and that somehow, you noticed that i speak "can't" funny.

thank god that they don't know that you can say "baby" in ten million different ways and somehow, be able to send a thrill down some girl's spine. or that you write the shortest but sweetest of notes. they don't know that you refuse to put down the phone until the short goodbye becomes a long drawn out conversation, involving a couple more jokes and smiles.

thank god people will never know about our "phone-e-oke" and how i sing quite poorly next to you. or, that when i tried to sing you a song you ended up singing cause i botched up the lyrics. and while they - nor i - will ever ever figure out how we manage to stay on the phone for hours on end, i know that it's something that'll be very hard to give up.

thank god i learned all these about you before you had to go and say goodbye. some lucky girl has won your heart and you know that's forever. but thank you for being a friend, just like you said you were, and for showing me that behind every big ass is an asswipe.

an ex-boyfriend isn't supposed to call.

he's not supposed to call two months after your last hurried phone conversation, not after he told you he won't help you "fix" your ipod because, as he said, "kaya mo na yan."

he's not supposed to ask you how you are, and how your day was. he's not supposed to ask what you'll be doing the day after and how review is coming along.

most of all, he's not supposed to ask you if you're seeing someone else, and in the same breath tell you that, no, he isn't seeing anyone as well either.

god, i hate the rush of emotions that go through me when i hear him on the phone months after i've given up on him. i hate not knowing it was him when he first says "hi", automatically assuming it's someone else i was expecting to call. i hate the feeling i get thirty seconds later when i finally realize that it's him on the phone and that for some reason, he still knows my home number.

sometimes i wish he'd just stay away, stay dead insofar as i am concerned. it took a while for me to be able to drive by his house* without breaking, shifting to first gear, and looking through his bedroom window hoping i'd see how he is. it took a while for me to stop having these visions of him walking hand in hand with some sexy chick in atc. and, most importantly, it took a while for me to be able to go through a single night without crying.

and so, while i know i'm over you, and while i know that the possibility of me keying your car in frustration has died down to a minimum, i'm going to ask you to stay away for the meantime. forget we're going to be friends, forget we said we were best buds, and i'd appreciate it if you don't call me at all.

that is until you finally realize that i was the best you ever had and you want me back.

and maybe, just maybe, i'll think about it.

*no i'm not a stalker, it just so happens that his house is right smack there on tropical avenue. it's sheer torture. had i had the power to do it, i'd rezone bf and make him transfer to where i won't have to see his window every single effing day.

funny how when you least expect it, when you're wearing a ratty UP LAW gray shirt, jeans and sneakers and when your hair is all over the place, you get a card and two pieces of cadbury chocolate.

it's been a while.

but, i must admit, i was touched.

thanks, w. i know it freaked me out that it seemed like you waited for me to go to the washroom to hand over your present and it freaked me out so much that i couldn't go back to the washroom alone after that. i know i'd probably hide in the mezzanine for a while and study there, instead of on my favorite table by the garden because sometimes it bothers me when you just sit beside me and be your really nice self. i know that it will probably be awkward for a while and the smiles will be a bit forced for the next couple of days. but, one day, i'll be able to tell you that that tiny "thank you" card that you gave which had about five handwritten hearts in black ink at the bottom right corner, somehow, made me feel really good about myself.