hurrah for good things

a storm is raging somewhere in the philippines and while pag-asa claimed it will be signal number 2 in manila by tonight, the weather is still peaceful where i am. that's good thing number 1.

since a storm is supposedly raging, alnp alabang cancelled its commitment night for tomorrow. that left this evening free for me to make my way to qc and finally open the balikbayan box which came for us.

and, as with all balikbayan boxes, good things come inside.

d&b bag, d&b lunch bag, towels, bedsheets, gummy bears, make-up, make-up bags, post-its, highlighters, notebooks, notebook paper (ok, i know i'm not in school anymore but i am a major sucker for school supplies), and a whole lot of knick-knacks.

sigh.

all those plus my third pair of seychelle's shoes (i still haven't bought the lilac suede pumps... i bought this orange-y brown flats that are soooo pretty), the list goes on and on.

happy weekend, everyone.

shoe love

today almost made it to our list of "the saddest things in the world."

well, almost.

see, i wasn't having a good day fashion wise when i went to work this morning. for some strange reason, nothing in my shoe closet fit the outfit i had selected for work.

well, almost nothing except this pair that i haven't worn in ages. a pair of round toe heels i bought when the craze first started, a pair i haven't worn in a while, a pair that is soon bound to make it to the trash bin. tipong isang suot na lang, pwede nang kunin ni god.

i wore them, believing with all honestly, that i am doing them a favor by wearing them one last time. it's like going out on one last date with the boy you knew you were going to break up with by the end of the evening.

when i got to work though, it became apparent that the shoe had beaten me to the punch. probably due to a lot of factors, heat and non-use included, one of the decorative straps decided to unglue itself from the sole. by the time 10:30 am came, decorative straps on both shoes have unglued themselves and were swinging gaily.

my officemates - none of them even remotely addicted to shoes - told me i should just have the shoe repaired somewhere. clearly, they didn't know of my plan to break-up with the shoe.

i told my officemates that we had to eat lunch at robinson's place. i NEEDED new shoes.

i was confident i was going to find an acceptable pair of shoes to replace the evil pair i was wearing. after all, isn't robinson's place manila THE mall which always has something on sale.

uhm, no. on the single day i desperately needed a new pair, the only shoes on sale inside the department store were shoes i wouldn't even wear if they were given to me.

and, oh. even the shoes selling for full price weren't shoes i'd buy on 70% off.

i walked out, dejected. the shoe whore has lost this battle.

sa celine, my officemate told me. so i went there and i spied a beautiful pair of leopard print ballet flats selling for PhP499. i requested for a size 8.

wala. so i picked another pair. they had it in 8 but i didn't like it so much and the color didn't look that good with the pants i was wearing.

emboldened by the fact that i had my 13th month pay deposited in my atm, i asked my officemates to go with me to nine west. last na, i told them.

nothing. nada. zilch. gay then said the magic words, "this is one of the saddest things in the world. to be so decided to buy a pair of shoes and not find any."

i agreed, but only until we got to rustan's and i saw the magic letters.

S

A

L

E

but then, i don't exactly have a love-love relationship with rustan's. clearly nothing like my relationship with SM.

but maybe the tantocos are making a bid for the heart that so belongs to henry sy. because when i came in, i spied a beautiful pair of barney-purple heels.

size 8 barney-purple heels by seychelles. they were not only on sale (from 4k++ to PhP1,350) but they went with my outfit and they fit me perfectly. and oh, i loved them at first sight.

so i told the girl i was going to purchase them. then the girl said, ok po ma'am. 638 pesos na lang po.

i must have misheard her. so i asked her again, magkano?

she repeated it word for word.

needless to say, i got another pair.

and i would have gotten a third had the third pair not been lilac suede shoes. for the life of me, i can't imagine where i can wear lilac suede shoes.

but then again, i've got tonight to think so who knows. maybe tomorrow, i'd feel an affinity for lilac suede shoes.

and at 638 pesos, i'm beginning to think i don't even need to feel any affinity towards them to take the leap and buy them. these are, after all, shoes.

and we all know how much i love shoes.

the fulfillment of a dream

while yesterday didn't really start out as an amazing day, it turned out okay, well, more than okay, thanks to fb.

it started out with me being very hungry by 3p.m., so i sent fb an SMS.

"gutom ako"

fb wasn't really nice at first. "may tinatapos ako."

grrrr.

i contented myself with pandesal. then, before going home, i spied his car still in the parking lot. at 5pm.

himala. i called, "sipag ah."

turns out he was just waiting for his boss to leave. and then he said something that made my heart leap, "halika pakainin na kita."

we made plans to meet at figaro at ccp but it turns out it closed recently. since he knows i want dimsum, we went to gloria maris beside coconut palace but they didn't have dimsum so we had to leave again.

hungry, tired, and desperate, he asked me, "gusto mo i-try jumbo floating restaurant?"

see, a week or two ago, i told him that i've always wanted to eat there. i never got the chance to do it in hong kong cause my parents felt it was too expensive for chinese food, not to mention my mom isn't really a fan of authentic chinese food. then, we were supposed to eat there for my cousin's graduation but my grandmother refuses to eat something that isn't on dry land so we scrapped the plan.

"sigurado ka?" i asked. i mean, come on. it must be expensive.

he nodded.

so we went in and we were seated at this place with a horrible view and we were informed within five seconds that no, they only had dimsum at lunch.

wtf?

but i guess he was tired of looking for a place to eat in (the only other choice was the ihawan place by the bay) and he knew how much i wanted to eat there so we did.

rice and shrimps.

good food but the bill shocked me. i mean, come on, good food shouldn't cost that much.

thank god it didn't shock him. he paid.

he paid in spite of the fact that i made the stupid, dumb, and uneducated mistake of telling him that the wash water was sauce for the shrimp.

see, they put the rice, the shrimp, and the wash water all at the same time on top of the lazy susan. and no one bothered to explain to us what that liquid in the bowl was.

it was just placed there.

and so i assumed it was for the shrimp. and i told him that. and since he apparently trusts me, he tasted it.

only to complain.

we had a laugh over that.

a hearty laugh.

but i know i'll never hear the end of it from him.

i don't care. i've finally eaten at jumbo floating restaurant.

dang. i almost forgot it's christmas-time.

well, sort of.

after all, spike already has his santa claus hanging from the rearview mirror and i've already brought the christmas tree at work. i've also loaded my favorite christmas cd on my car player and i play that every single moment i get. i've also already received my 13th month pay and i've actually bought my first christmas gift for someone.

and yes, my favorite peppermint mocha is back.

so why is it that christmas continues to remain the farthest thing from my mind?

maybe cause unlike last year, there's no starbucks boy to flirt with. and maybe cause unlike last year, there's possibility of receiving a shoe calendar from ghostwriter. maybe cause christmas shopping doesn't really sound exciting when there's no special someone for you to shop for. maybe cause at 150bucks a pop, starbucks coffee has become way to expensive to indulge in every single day.

i don't know.

but what i do know is that i have to muster up the christmas spirit up soon.

next to my birthday, christmas happens to be my favorite holiday and it would be an absolute waste of christmas if i let this one pass without so much as a bang.

p.s. i realized how un-christmassy i've been this year when i read pam's blog and realized that for the first time in my life, i can't seriously think of ten things i want on my christmas list.

well, there's one - pldt boy - but then you can't really put a person on a list, or can you?

26 days ... and counting.

i'm counting every single day until it's december 21.

thank god this week will be consumed by practices for our commitment night in lingkod. and thank god next saturday will be a full day for me, with my grand aunt's 80th birthday party plus a morning with the kids of tuloy sa don bosco.

thank god there's the all consuming desire to lose weight, especially now there's the need to fit into a gorgeous gown. oh wait, there's the need to find gorgeous gown in the first place.

but 26 days, well, 26 days will crawl and creep and take forever. and when that day finally comes, i'm willing to bet that each second will feel like torture until it's almost 7 pm.

and you know what the funny thing is? it's not even my wedding. and it's not even a wedding i want to attend in the first place.

but he will be going with me and that will make all the difference in the entire universe.

could it be true?

could it be really truly actually true (i'm being redundant, i know!) that my seven-month old crush might actually see me the same way i see him?

well if there's any truth to what i got from one of his friends, then the next time you see me, i might be floating on cloud nine. but until i get any confirmation regarding that rumor, i'm going to stay planted on earth. with guys, you never ever really know what they're thinking.

incidentally, if its really true, i'd be very very happy. and it would be the perfect way to cap a really awful day at work.

and, oh, ara. my mom got my pink boxing gloves already! now all i need to wait for is the box that'll be bringing it straight to me.

pampanga, pacman, and pldt boy.

my weekend couldn't have gotten any better.

after boxing last saturday, i met some of the brother and sisters from lingkod at ATC and by three, we were off to pampanga.

the trip there would have been pretty uneventful had it not been for the fact that i was in the same car as pldt boy. being the naturally chatty and inquisitive person i was, it was not long before i had interrogated him on everything.

well, almost everything. it was not long before one of the sisters who knew i had a major thing for pldt boy began giving me the evil eye, as if trying to tell me that i had no business "investigating" this person, especially considering that he had shown absolutely zilch interest in me.

oh well.

every single minute at pampanga was fun, from joining the ALNP prayer meeting at san fernando to crashing ALNP angeles' fellowship at mimosa (and, in the process enjoying a whole lot of divine food, so much for my diet). and that was just what we did on the first day. we slept at guagua, pampanga where we also heard mass in this pretty church with an amazing all-male choir. after brunch, we then headed out to angeles once more where we had lunch (yes, brunch then lunch ... pampanga means no dieting allowed, it seems) at the house of a sister. we were served sinigang (my absolute favorite), sisig, and inihaw na tilapia. while we were served dessert (as if we still had space for that), all of us rushed through it since pacman's fight was about to be shown already.

so what if we knew pacman was going to win already, right? for one, i was watching it to gaze at morales and nothing else.

after the fight (uhm, if you could call it that), we then went to dau to visit a brother who was celebrating his birthday, and that meant MORE eating, including this thing that we fondly called "slugs".

we were finally able to leave pampanga at around 7 or so, and, unlike our trip going there, the drive home was pretty uneventful. we were all tired, we all wanted to get home already, and we all had work the following day. we did have fun though taking pictures at mcdonald's petron. if you were there sometime 8 p.m. well, we were the group that bought a single cup of coffee but pretty much abused the place. horrible, aren't we?

an amazing weekend all in all. hopefully i'd have pictures to show for it soon.

let me delude myself now. see, i actually believed the saleslady in a store when she told me "siguro ma'am nag-gy-gym kayo kasi maganda katawan niyo." i'm willing to bet she just wanted to make a sale.

but when every part of you is aching and you've probably used more alaxan gel than manny pacquiao after a fight with morales, you'd cling on to anything to make you take another beating at elorde, right?

anyway, i cheated on my trainer yesterday and decided to try out this boxing gym recommended by a friend from work. it's a gym located at the fourth floor of wesleyan colleges (somewhere in taft, behind arellano school of law, just can't remember the name now, my bad) and while the fees are pretty much the same as those in elorde, i realized that a kind-hearted trainer won't do me any good. unlike lando (my elorde trainer), this guy let me rest when i wanted to rest, let me slack-off when he'd see me panting, and ignored the "short cuts" in throwing my punches. he was kind, but he didn't seem that motivated in making sure i was doing everything right. enough cheating, then. tomorrow, i will subject myself to another gruelling torture boxing session with lando. after all, i do want to win that bet.

with every fiber of my being consummed with boxing, i haven't had given enough attention to other noteworthy things, such as the return of the red cups at starbucks! so far, i only have four pathetic stamps in my "planner card" (or whatever it is that they call it) and considering that it takes almost forever to burn off all the calories i'd ingest in a single cup of peppermint mocha, a huge part of me wants to call my bid for a planner quits. two things, however, are preventing me from doing that: (1) peppermint comes only once a year - and i do love peppermint beyond all comprehension and (2) the planner is v. v. pretty.

pam has posted about the wishing bracelets and i want one too. i actually want a specific bracelet and if you know me well enough, you'd know it's the one which says "i want more shoes." and you know what, i really do.

oh, by the way, i've opened a bank account for spike. my officemate kidded me about it, basically laughing at the thought that anyone would open a bank account for her car but then at the rate that car consumes money for repairs, insurance, and what-not, i'm going to need to set aside money for it specifically so i don't mess with my other accounts whenever something big comes up, like the way the 30k check-up ruined my budget. my mom was right. having a car is like having a kid.

this is it for my friday then. enjoy the weekend, everyone!

thursdays aren't usually exciting. it's pretty much like the orange lifesaver: it's not quite as popular as the red ones but it's a pretty acceptable substitute. thus, thursday isn't quite friday but the fact that you know you've got one more work day to go is pretty good.

this thursday, if i may say so myself, is pretty good.

good food over lunch.

good day at work, finally finishing this crazy decision that, IMHO, was an absolute waste of the court's time.

good boxing session. so good i actually got my first "war wound". well, it's just a tiny scrape on my knuckle but i feel like a "boxer" now. sad but true.

good post boxing session with a friend, just hanging out chatting about life while staring out into the horizon.

i never really liked thursdays. but this thursday, well, it's good enough. let's see what friday might bring.

who knows? maybe pldt boy might finally make his move.

i want

p.s. santa,it's available here: http://store.everlastboxing.com/hp-training-gloves-pink.html

i thought it was going to get easier.

it wasn't.

it actually got a bit harder, especially when we were doing the abdominal exercises. there were parts of my tummy that were calling out for help, parts that i didn't know existed prior to this day.

and my punches, well, they were flying all over the place. clearly i lose control of my arms half an hour into the workout.

let's not even talk about the huge amounts of sweat that came out of me today. i could have irrigated a small town in bulacan.

i had hoped that when i weighed myself when i got home there'd be some progress. a pound. or two. anything.

guess what, no change. not even a teeny tiny bit of change. the arrow decidedly stayed at my pre-boxing weight. heck, i weigh more than pacquiao.

damn.

but then we had crispy pata, sisig, crisy kangkong, and inihaw na pusit for lunch. and i didn't hold back on the rice (i ate a full cup!), nor did refrain from ordering a drink (lemonade). and we also had pancit bihon for merienda to celebrate someone's birthday. clearly, these are things that aren't going to help me in my bid to lose weight.

oh well. i'm keeping a positive attitude about this. i am enjoying boxing and it's keeping me busy (too busy to think about pldt boy, forbidden boy, and the pilot).

but hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, i begin to show some progress after this week. i don't know how long i'll be able to keep this positive attitude if i don't lose weight soon.

today the government gave us PhP7,500.

a month ago, when the rumors first came out that we were going to get money, i told myself i was going to buy me a new fino bag. i even visited the store several times contemplating on which bag to buy. i told my friends at work (sometimes telling them helps me from backing out) and told them to remind me just in case i forget.

PhP7,500 for a pretty bag is a bit too much, i agree. i've got two reasons though why i needed this bag: (1) i usually end up spending bonuses on things i can't remember, hence, a big purchase would be good cause i'd at least know where the money went and (2) i've been working hard, i need something to reward myself with. call it my early christmas gift to myself.

but then while i was hanging out with a friend and discussing the merits of the bag, he, hatefully i may add, did not agree with the purchase.

"that's too much," he said, "and you don't even need it! some of your bags are in the living room already."

uhm, well, some of them are.

so when the PhP7,500 arrived this afternoon, i knew it wasn't going towards a new bag, it was going to go straight to the bank. PhP2,500 to open a bank account for spike, my car (at the rate it "spends" money on regular check-ups, insurance, and gasoline, you'd think i was raising a child) and PhP5,000 to go to my account.

only the person i asked to deposit it to my account didn't get to the bank on time and banco de oro refused to allow me to open an account cause i didn't have a 1x1 picture with me.

clearly, the money isn't meant to go to the bank.

but whether the money should go towards a lovely fino bag, well, maybe i'll be able to figure that out tonight.

but, honestly, a new fino bag sure does sound good to me.

partly out of pride, partly out of my unexplainable faith in myself, and partly out of a desire to have a spanking new body by the time i hit thirty, i made a bet with a friend.

well, it didn't exactly start out that way. it started out like every other conversation i had about my weight:

other person: you're pretty.
me: thanks.
other person: you'd be
prettier though if you lost weight.
me: i know.
other person: so why
don't you?
me: i will.

now, on any other other day, the conversation would end with that and i'd go on my merry way and the other person would go his/her merry way and we'd never discuss the weight issue again until, well, probably until the next time i wear something unflattering and the weight becomes painfully obvious.

this time though, it was different. my friend made a bet with me. a two thousand peso bet. two thousand bucks for twenty pounds to be lost before i hit thirty. that means in the next four months, i ought to lose at least five pounds a month.

i really should've thought about it more, after all, two thousand bucks, if you think about it, isn't that big an amount these days anymore. but then it might have been one of those days when my knees were painful from walking around in heels (you don't really realize how much you've gained until you wear your sky high heels and your knees groan from the pressure) or it could've been the fact that i haven't worn this pair of pretty slacks for the longest time. it could've also been the fact that i'm supposed to emcee yet another event for my boss by the end of december. i don't know. what i do know is that at the end of that day, i had made a bet, and i planned on winning it.

so today, i made my first move towards winning that two grand: i finally went with a friend to elorde. now, as far as gyms go, the elorde sports center at sucat leaves much (a lot!) to be desired. considering however that i am, and have never been, a gym person, the testosterone-filled room didn't scare me. it simply told me that if i really wanted to lose those 20 lbs. (and who knows, 30?), i was in the right place.

i wasn't wrong. by the time i finished the warm-up (yes, just the warm-up) i was close to panting like a lost dog. by the time i finished the laps around the room, i was like one of those horses foaming at the mouth from sheer exhaustion. and 45 minutes into the basics of boxing, i was ready to box the trainer himself. i was THAT tired.

probably sensing that, the trainer said "we're done" and took off the gloves and the bandages and let me go. finally.

or so i thought. after making small talk, including the promise that 20 lbs. shouldn't be a problem if i did this thrice a week, he then made me stand again.

wha-----

abdominal exercises.

f*cker. this guy was hitler, only he didn't speak german.

i made it through my a little over an hour trial session. and all the torture to my body aside, i loved it.

i loved it so much i am actually looking forward to going back there. i loved how the exercises made me feel that i actually went to atc afterwards (achy muscles and all) and bought my own hand wrap and boxing gloves.

now, whether i do lose the 20 lbs. or not, i wouldn't know until i've done more sessions. but whether i do or not, well, i'll probably learn enough of boxing to punch the hell out of any person in the future who'd have the guts to open up any topic concerning my weight.

i'm a closet britney fan. what that means is that while i don't own a single britney cd (pirated or otherwise), i'll most probably belt out at least one britney song while doing videoke with family and friends. that, and the fact that i am willing to admit in public that i watched britney's movie, crossroads, in the movie theater.

i "dumped" britney when she married kfed, basically cause kfed doesn't rock my boat and since, well, britney wasn't "britney" when she was with him. she got fat, she got kids, and she became tabloid fodder. totally unlike the "idol" that she was when she first came out.

anyway, now she's filed for divorce and is smokin' hott britney once more, well, there's a huge possibility that the britney mania might surface in me once more.

and maybe, this time around, i'd finally get around to buying one of her cds. (i bet a post kfed cd would be full of angsty mad sing-able tunes. good.)

sorry world, it's just been a really shitty day.

really, it should have been a good day. after all, how often do i received a bunch of pink roses first thing in the morning from an unknown person?

but then there are things that lovely flowers simply cannot cure.

so if you were the driver of the baby blue hyundai getz that i honked at for a full minute for stopping in the middle of a very narrow road to unload a person, i'm sorry. (although i still believe it was bad manners to have stopped in the middle of the road, effectively preventing anyone from passing on either side.)

and if you were the jeepney drive i had a "gitgitan" contest with, i'm sorry too.

i'm sorry if during the course of the day i lost my patience with you or if while driving home i cut you off. i'm sorry if i didn't give a tip even if the service was pretty good and i'm sorry if i refused to do you any favors.

there are just days when even the chirpiest of us refuses to chirp. today happens to be one of those days.

it could be PMS (although way tooooo early for that) or could be cause sun did something totally evil and shitty again (if i don't reply to your messages, you know it's not cause i'm snubbing you.).

i dunno.

it's just been a really bad day and i can't wait for it to end.

p.s. if you were the one who gave me the roses though, thank you very very much. were it not for those, i'd probably have ended up a lot worse.

i'm hungry but i'm too lazy to go out and get some food.

i'm bored at home but i'd rather have supernatural on the dvd player play on and on (with me hardly understanding anything as i'm not really watching) rather than go out and actually get stuff done.

today i know i've got to go out and get my own copy of inquirer (hopefully they haven't run out of copies yet), pay meralco, pldt, and cellphone bills, and buy that amazing gift for my godchild before they run out of it but i can't seem to get around to doing it.

i've been awake since 6 (and i blame my brother for it) but as to having done something productive, well, nothing, nada, zilch. unless of course you consider the email that i've sent my mom.

the martian - who had coffee with me last night - has noted that i'm pretty bored with my life right now. lack of boys, perhaps, he asked me. well, not really.

i mean, there is forbidden boy and looking at him is enough to send shivers down my spine but then looking and actually having aren't really the same. and we all know i can't have him, right?

and pldt boy. gah. either it's going to happen, or it's not. at this rate, it's not. but he is hott, damn it, really really hott and had it not been for lingkod, well, i'd have done every single thing in the book to be with him. as things stand right now, though, i am supposed to be content with just pining for him. pining quietly and silently and pray to dear god that he never ever figures out how i feel about him.

it's stupid how these things consume me right now, especially when just watching television you'd realize a million and one things that are worth consuming you as opposed to mundane things like hunger pangs and boys. but then, this is me, and i am as shallow as can be.

and sometimes, it's the shallow that gets us through the day.