from the ultimate high that came from passing the bar almost three months ago, i've almost forgotten the fact that i'm actually a lawyer now. in fact, someone turned to me a couple of weeks back and said, "you're a lawyer, right?" and i almost said the line i've been saying for more than a year: "i took the bar but i'm still waiting for the results." that's when it hit me again: yup, i am a lawyer.

since i'm still doing exactly the same job at exactly the same place for exactly the same pay (they have yet to adjust my salary, hate the personnel department of the court of appeals, i swear), there's absolutely nothing that'll make me feel the immense shift that has just taken place. heck, i even sit at my old desk (lawyers usually stay in a separate room but i didn't move, go figure). given all of these things, i am slowly beginning to ache for a change, a major change.

it doesn't help that my batchmates keep emailing job offers at various law firms. so, while money has never (ok, fine, almost never) been my consideration at picking a job, now, the zeroes at the end of a salary quotation and the word "bonus" "17 months" and "allowance" have begun making my eyes as round as saucers and my mind mentally compute how these things will translate in terms of shoes and bags. and when they do complain about the long hours, the lack of a personal life, and the horrible experience of dealing with guilty clients, i'm thinking "imagine being bored, broke, and facing dusty rollos day in and day out."

clearly, i am so ready to make a change.

but then again, maybe not yet. right now, i am totally basking in the fact that i am still at home - and have yet to take a bath and prepare for work - at 8 am and totally not worried about being late for work. now, how many lawyer positions can give you that?

seven and a half hours.

that's how long it takes to turn my hair into something that my ultimate crush would say "nice" to.

what's dumb though was that since the entire process took seven and a half gruelling hours, i was left with only three short hours to flutter my eyelashes and do the high school pa-cute thing in front of me. now, considering that we were at an event where (1) pa-cute antics are highly discouraged; (2) one of his crushes danced, sang, and generally wowed the world with her sheer talent and beauty; and (3) a hundred and fifty other people who would, at one time or another, demand his or my attention, the only thing that he did get to say was "nice" and the hateful joke that people say when you do something to your hair, "sh-in-ampoo mo lang yan?"

i swear. if i become rich enough, i'd take out an injunction against anyone using that line. it trivializes the 7 1/2 hour process. (and i'm willing to be that those commercial girls had to sit in a salon the same amount of time to get their hair looking like that too. the gall to claim it was all the work of a miraculous shampoo.)

moving on, it really did take that long. being as poor as i am with estimating time as i am with estimating parking space, i ended up being three hours late for the event i was supposed to attend. i could've sworn that the last time i subjected my hair - and myself for that matter - through the same kind of torture it only (only! ha, i make me laugh) took me five hours.

now of course the torture doesn't end there. there's three days of water-free existence for my locks (i pity the drone who'd have to sit beside me in an fx), a couple more of shampoo-free days (again, pity for the drone, and my smelly smelly scalp), and my wallet which, after having bled out already, will be suffering more as treatments and other implements are required.

all this for hair that's supposed to look naturally straight, shiny, and attractive. the irony of it all.

so men, the next time someone you fancy (even slightly) appears before you one day with a-little-different-from-normal-in-a-good-way hair, please take time out to say something more than "nice". you never know if she's actually spent half a day stewing on her ass in hunger to look halfway decent.

my dear newbie counsel,

two years of friendship, late night convos. it doesn't take long to know that a soul does find its mate.

love,

adam

when people started raising their eyebrows over the fact that i had taken a position with the government, i shrugged off the concern. after all, i was working with an amazing boss, the pay wasn't half bad (it kept me in shoes and for me, that's enough), and i didn't have to spend every waking hour at work. the uniform was horrible but since i got in after they measured everyone for uniforms, i didn't have to wear them.

life, i thought, was good.

but then right before my dad left, we, together with my brother, had this conversation about my future plans now that i've finally passed the bar. will i go the law firm route? will i do corporate law (everyone in my family wanted me to do this although i absolutely have no talent for it)? will i do HR work (my dream is to work for SM, go figure)? or, gasp, will i stay with the government and continue there until i turn into - insert drumroll here - one of them?

i, of course, defended my decision to stay with the government. forget the fact that i "owed" my boss loyalty considering that she had supported me in all aspects while i reviewed for the bar anew. i believed i was happy and in some perverted way, i believed that the system needed more people like me. i had coasted by law school with a pittance for a tuition fee (P300 per unit, at the best law school) because of government subsidy, so i also believed i owed the government at least a couple of years of my legal career.

recently, however, i've begun to reconsider my decision. partly because we've been recently measured for uniforms and we're due to start wearing them sometime soon and partly because i've realized that nothing i do or say will change the fact that i work for the government and the government can be is the most inefficiently run organization known to man.

people - including me - arrive late. and those who do arrive early, time in, then move on to spend the rest of their morning loitering around the place. people - not including me this time - refuse to do anything beyond what they believe they should be doing. and the lines at the bundy clock thirty minutes before they can actually clock out - so true. (footnote: this really bewilders me. i mean, why would anyone want to actually spend half an hour standing in line in the heat when they can be sitting inside an airconditioned office room?)

and god forbid you slightly offend anyone by asking "who's in charge of doing -insert task here-?" apparently, they're not too big on accountability in the government. on the contrary, the mantra of most government employees - at least in the personnel department of where i work - is "wait until we get to you. not a peep until then. otherwise, you are deemed mean and offensive and hurtful."

so while i treasure the long lunches, the relaxed schedule, and my boss , i've seriously begun considering going back to the private sector. the pay, most definitely, is a major consideration. but more than that, i am so looking forward to working at a place where things get done when they're supposed to be done, where professionalism is the norm, and where hurt feelings aren't used as a currency.

the really hateful thing about life is that when you finally think you've got every aspect under control and that you're actually happy, things happen and everything gets messed up anew. it's like the conspiracy gods thought "well, she's too happy again, let's shake things up."

that's what's been happening to me.

last may, my dad came home, i met and became good friends with this amazing boy, and i was totally happy about my job. now, my dad's away again, the friendship has turned into something a little less than anger, and my job, well, i'd like nothing more than to find a new one. clearly, june has turned me into an angry camper.

thank god for old sex and the city dvds and cheetos twisted puffs. i've realized that when you begin to feel like the world has turned against you, there's nothing that a night spent in front of the tv watching others struggle with their own relationship problems can't solve.

incidentally, happy father's day to all the father's out there. my own dad - if i must say - is the MOST amazing dad a girl can have. i guess it goes without saying that i know in my heart i am a daddy's girl and until i find a guy who's half as amazing as he is, there's no way i can get married and be actually happy.

when your knees experience major pain during an hour long activity with the blessed sacrament, you know it's high time that you lose weight.

a lot of weight.

thank goodness that after five months, i found myself bright and early saturday morning at a boxing session and it wasn't long before i was sweating like crazy. after an hour, only one thought kept me going - papayat ka. papayat ka. papayat ka.

anyway, i spent the rest of the day helping a friend write an appeal memorandum for his case and after two years of writing decisions, i felt quite exhilirated writing for one party only. i had the chance to use scathing words (apparently this is what pro-employer lawyers use) and was hard pressed to write something that would totally tilt the scales in favor of the employer. it felt funny, but for the first time, it made me feel like a real lawyer.

next week it'll be father's day and i can't help but wish my dad were here.

and, oh, it was spike's 4th birthday last thursday. happy happy birthday, spikee!