shoes, without a doubt, would be my biggest weakness.

it goes without saying then that shoes on sale are impossible to resist, at least until today when i realized that i can walk away from gorgeous suede boots that cost P599 (and 50% off on your second pair!).

and, oh, i didn't walk away from the once, but twice.

of course i'd be lying if i didn't say that the first time i was able to walk away only cause my EPS account barely has enough money to cover that purchase without going below balance and the second time i was able to walk away cause i had two friends actually physically restraining me from entering the shop, and from using my savings account that i had sworn not to touch.

i know in my head that i'm not even the boot-wearing kind and that if i did buy them, there's only one work outfit that the boots would be perfect with. i don't even know what i'll do with them if i did buy them (i mean, yes, i could wear them, but with what?). and while they're quite pretty and that they'll look perfect with skinny jeans folded up until the top of the boot (see the korea-novela "my girl" for reference!), i know in my mind that with my rubenesque figure, i'd look foolish in them. still, why is it that the boots are still on my mind and why is it that memory of how they hugged my feet and ankles (they felt like they were made especially for me) still persists up till now?

i'm convinced that there's something wrong with me. i am addicted to shoes. it's come to the point that i am convinced it's quite sick how i'm almost unable to stop myself from buying more shoes. thank god that none of the tests they made me take while i was applying to the court covered the area of shoe-obsession. otherwise, i'd never have made it in.

but then again, who are they to judge? i've got a boss who's even more of a shoe addict than i am.

it was a bad combination. the august 2006 edition of lucky + the arrival of an unexpected bonus + stress of everything that was going around me = an unplanned shopping spree.

it began innocently enough. celine has had this sale for almost a month and there was a gorgeous top that was selling at 70% off the original tag price. and so i bought it.

and then there was this pretty, pretty girly skirt at sari-sari. and again, it was on sale. P299. and it went perfectly with the top from celine. and so i bought it.

since i had to get started on studying, i left the mall, drove to my favorite starbucks (which just happens to be at mothership sm sucat), and parked my ass at my "reserved" seat. well, almost parked my ass. basically, i dumped my 10 pound book at the table, told them i was just going to check some stuff at the mall, and ended up coming back more than an hour later with two pairs of shoes, a top, and a bag.

nasty.

today, i attempted to curb the shopping monster in me by depositing what was left of my bonus. every single centavo. except, we got our salary today and an officemate asked me to go to the mall with her to buy this pair of sandals which she couldn't get out of her head. and before i knew it i came home with pretty, pretty ref magnets (starting my christmas shopping early!) and a pair of huge sunglasses that makes me look like a retired movie star on rehab.

tomorrow, i plan to lock myself in my room and avoid the mall at all costs. hopefully it will work until my shopping fever dies down.

what will happen on monday, i don't really know. i work a hundred meters away from the mall. and, from what i hear, we've got another unexpected bonus coming up. gaaaah. with the ongoing mango sale and with every little shop on the mall with at least one item on sale, it's going to be tough.

very tough.

my overloaded tuesday almost meant me not blogging before going to sleep. after all, i told myself, blogging at 1:30 a.m. and when i wake up at, say 7:30 a.m. shouldn't make much of a difference, right?

but then again i had just attended our first huge family wedding in ten years. and my aunt from canada surprised me with a very, very pretty skirt from zara (something a government employee like me can't afford on a regular day), not to mention another pretty skirt that'll go well with the kenneth cole slip-ons christie bought me a year ago that i have yet to wear. to top it all off, keith sent me yet another care package that's more or less the reason why i'm awake now instead of dead to the world.

the most fun i've had in months + pretty things + being pretty the entire day = me staying awake long enough to write a post, albeit a bit incoherent, before crashing for the day. so here goes...

chrisite/anna and ian finally had their church wedding today. while our side of the family was about a tenth of the guest list, we were the noisiest group - starting from when we all met up in the church to the time we finally said our goodbyes. for one, we finally had the first "cousins" picture we had in years. while there's only seven of us - three in canada, two in manila, and two in laguna - we haven't hung out together for more than a decade. so, the first thing we did was call a photographer and have him snap shot after shot of us while we were waiting for the ceremony to start. after that was done, our aunts and uncles joined us and we posed like there was no tomorrow. as if all the pictures in the chapel weren't enough, we snapped picture after picture in the reception, and created enough of a ruckus dancing and cheering our side of the family on that the photographer and videographers had a field day shooting us.

i guess it will take more than a typhoon to dampen our spirits.

it's such a shame that i won't be able to join them when they go to bangkok this coming thursday (damn flunking the bar and being unable to go on leave since my boss is giving me almost two months off to study). i bet they're not only going to have lots of fun shopping but they're also going to have a whole lot of fun just being with each other. hanging out with my cousins, rocky, gino and justin, ninang nilda, tita jake, and tito mao made me rethink my plan of postponing a trip to canada anytime soon. all of a sudden, i'd want nothing more than to spend a month or so basking in family fun. (okay, i'll admit that keith having sent the newest copy of lucky magazine more than convinced me to look for my now expired passport and make actual plans of renewing it so that i can buy every single lovely thing in the magazine.)

okay. now i'm really tired.

and i don't think i'm coherent anymore.

hopefully, pictures from brian and anna to follow. trust me NOT to bring my camera.

p.s.
christie and ian - i had so MUCH fun in your wedding, i felt SO pretty in the gown, and, i think kit will agree with this, i felt pretty good seeing more than a couple of our pictures together in your video presentation. to wish you guys a good marriage would be redundant as you have somehow managed to stick it through since you guys first tied the knot four years ago. i guess the better wish would be that the US immigration finally fix ian's papers so that you guys can finally sleep - and wake up - next to each other every single day of your lives.

that and babies, babies, babies.

mwah. love you both. my favorite cousin has tied the knot to one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. for now, i can't think of anything that would make me happier than that.

lifestyles of the bored and lazy

forget the fact that save for a brief shining moment of studying glory yesterday afternoon, i had basically spent the entire weekend in bed. in spite of all the sleep that i had gotten over the weekend, i had the most difficult time getting out of bed this morning.

that is until i found out that there wasn't going to be any work today.

faced with the possibility of another free day, and probably regretful of the "lost time" over the weekend, i popped out of bed and my inner type "a" began planning out my day. probably finishing the tax book rache lent me, actually getting to the parlor this time instead of taking a detour at starbucks and never leaving, and planning what i'd buy this weekend at the sm sale. i can also make a detour (a pretty far detour) to makati and visit my family who'll be staying there to prepare for the wedding tomorrow.

suddenly, rain notwithstanding, there's so much to be done, so much to accomplish. thank god for a car that defies flood and a personality that thrives in bad weather. i'm so looking forward to the possibility of having a full day today.

but before i do any of those, lemme get a little more sleep. because more than anything else, probably more than i love shoes and bags, i love curling up beneath the blankets and getting some shut eye.

the week has kept me from posting anything online ... it's not cause i've been crazy busy though. my brain has been pretty much like mush since last week, first cause of a fever tha won't quit and after that went away, the medicine i took made me more sick than ever.

now i feel a bit better, thank you very much for asking.

anyway, this was also the week that i actually gave up a free trip to bangkok. almost my entire family will be going to bangkok after anna/christie's wedding and my grandmother backed out for some reason. since i'd like to think i'm my aunt's favorite travelling slave companion, they were pressuring me to renew my passport ASAP and get permission from my boss to skip a couple of days of work. i would've more than loved to go but since my boss didn't only give me the entire bar month but also august off, it would've been bordering on ingratitude if i actually asked for the end of july off. AAAARGGGGHHHHHH. goodbye cheap shopping, goodbye amazing shows, goodbye bonding time with family. hello, slavery.

work's pretty difficult for me. for the first time in my career, my boss is making me draft a decision in a criminal case. i tried to pick what i thought was an easy one but i've spent almost a week trying to make sense of it to no avail. what a time to switch to something difficult. i've got zillions more to finish before i start doing nothing except study ... at the rate i'm going, i'm never going to be able to go to the studying part.

anyway, i've planned on spending the entire day getting all the beautifying stuff done for anna/christie's wedding on tuesday. my roots are showing so i need to get that fixed and i've promised myself that i'll get a body scrub and massage as a treat for having finished my first reading (way overdue!). i also have to get my nails fixed so that they're pretty and not their usual raggedy selves. however, i'm halfway through saturday already and i haven't even gotten out of bed yet. maybe tomorrow???

a blow by blow account about how my night was would simply be too much considering, as a friend pointed out, i might be reading too much in something too little. but then again, when the guy you've been crushing on for the longest time finally asks your number and seems to have made the first move towards establishing a deeper friendship with you, it should be something to blog about right?

i'm broke, sick, and totally behind on my reading.

can it get any worse?

well, yes. the rain poured as i was about to leave the office, the traffic along roxas was horrible, and it took forever to get a ride. the trike i rode home must've have had a pledge to pollute the environment single handedly. i burned the bacon and there's something wrong with our microwave.

maybe the only thing to look forward to is the fact that hopefully, my recent bout with insomnia isn't something that's permanent. i mean, come on, me? unable to sleep?

i'm going to hide under the blankets in a while. hopefully, they'd give us the jdf tomorrow, my cold will go away, and that somehow, i'll find the necessary energy and motivation to attack mercantile law with a passion. but until that happens, i guess i'll just have to keep reminding myself that there'll always be a rainbow after the rain stops.

dear two random people at concha cruz,

i hope you believe me when i say that i didn't mean to splash you with all that water. i just really needed to go home real fast (cause i had to pee real bad) and i had to overtake that tricycle and before i knew it, i had caused this huge tsunami of a wave. i was too scared to stop lest you two attack me in anger. plus, as i said earlier, stopping would've meant me not being able to pee. and i had to pee real bad.

i hope you'll also believe me that i spent the entire ride home saying sorry to you guys. i saw from the rearview mirror that one of you was jumping up and down. i don't know if that was your way of drying or that was your way of expressing your anger but i'm really sorry. really, really sorry. heartfully apologetic.

although, if there's one fervent prayer going through my head right now, it's that i never, ever, ever meet you guys face to face.

apologetically yours,

rosa

been really, really tired lately for some reason. it may be due to a cold i couldn't shake. either that or my fat old body isn't used to the same stress i subjected to while i was going to law school: work in the morning and studying in the evening. it may be due to all the excess weight i've been carrying around, or just this thing that i've only decided to let go this morning. i don't know. most mornings i wake up more exhausted than when i went to sleep.

anyway, with my bid for a lovelife not going anywhere (i'm still praying and praying and keeping my fingers crossed and smiling till my cheeks hurt whenever he's around but that might take a while), i've decided to turn my attention to a fictional character. that guy on the left is probably not only the cutest korean telenovela star in my opinion but happens to be the coolest, smartest, sweetest, and most lovable character churned out in a korean telenovela show. and while he may not know me from eve, as far as i'm concerned, between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m., while i'm off in dreamland, he's mine.

even at my most broke, a saleslady telling another customer that the shoes i've been thinking of buying costs 200 bucks less than the sticker price is enough to make me buy the shoes.

wait, let me correct that. it makes me not buy one pair, but both pairs.

that and a pair of pants that costs only 399.

as if the spending spree wasn't enough, my weekend started with a trip to the parlor and ended with a trip to the grocery to buy half a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

funny, being broke seems to make me spend more.

probably hesitant over my purchases and knowing fully well that my cousin brian is as much of a shoe whore as i am (example: he bought a pair of shoes when we went out once and while he hasn't worn them yet, it didn't stop him from acquiring more shoes in the interim. his shoe cabinet is probably bigger than mine), i sent him an SMS telling him that i bought not just the pair we looked at but the same pair in another color. his reply: as long as it makes you happy.

apparently, imelda's blood runs in my family.

anyway, it's been a horrible week for me, punctuated with this major issue i've been trying to ignore but must deal with soon. i try not to worry about it if only because worrying will just make me look older and uglier. and considering my civil status, i should do everything to prevent THAT from happening.

and, oh, my bar grades arrived. while i had promised myself that i wouldn't open the envelope, the fact that it got soaked in the rain and that i might probably not be able to open it prompted me to tear the envelope open and face the truth about my dismal bar grades.

surprise, surprise. it wasn't as dismal as i thought.

i got grades ranging from the 60s to a high of 95. yes, one of my exams bore a grade of 95. who knew?

well, i'm done with my first reading as of this weekend. i've revised my second reading schedule based on my first reading and the bar grades. my boss offered to give me not just one month but two months off which was really generous of her.

so there.

whew.