sometimes, i hate the impulsive shopper in me

today, i got a hello kitty laptop keyboard for myself. being the reformed shopper that i am, i was able to justify the purchase:

1. my laptop's keyboard has no hope of ever being fixed;
2. it's too expensive to get laptops fixed. in fact, they even charge you for just looking at it;
3. my alternative keyboard - a full-sized keyboard i got from CD-R King - is too big and does not fit in my laptop bag;
4. the keyboard is cute, girly, and would motivate me to work; and
5. the seller, after much haggling, agreed on selling it to me for P700 instead of P895.

of course, right after i withdrew the money, i had apprehensions. it's a bit too expensive and had i thought about it more, i might not even have bought it. but then, (1) nakakahiya na after i told her to reserve it for me, i'll just withdraw money and (2) i needed the motivation to finish my one million and one thngs to do.

in the end, no matter what ABB said to convince me otherwise, i had made up my mind.

now, ABB also taught me the wonders of ebay shopping so i checked it out there.

so, so, so, so wrong.

hello kitty keyboards were selling like crazy for a fraction of the price.

so i tried to convicne myself - well what i needed was a smaller keyboard. a laptop keyboard.

a scroll and a half later, there it was. the exact same keyboard. for P500. with shipping, it's P600. and from a trusted seller.

dang.

screw bazaars. screw impulsive shopping. next time, when i don't have money, i'll say i'll think about it, go online, and check ebay first. and if not's there, then that's the only time i'll run over to the atm and actually buy.

p.s. and if i don't actually get to do what i just said in the previous paragraph, don't hate me. i promise i'm way more prudent when it comes to money than this post actually reveals me to be. just go ask gay.

moving out of my comfort zone

i love sm. i love sm malls (except mall of asia for some reason even i can't explain). i'm beyond happy that my daily commute involves a side trip to sm megamall almost every single working day.

save for their horrible labor policies, i love almost everything sm stands for: their tagline "we've got it all for you", the fact that almost everything is cheap, the fact that it's everywhere, and the fact that if you shop carefully and thoughtfully, you can actually make people think you spent a lot on your look.

sm = bliss.

but then i visited landmark at trinoma.

and there were clothes. a lot of clothes. a lot of affordable clothes. a lot of affordable clothes for work.

i must admit, my eyes popped. and my resolve to not buy for the meantime? flew out the window. landmark, at least last night, was shopping heaven.

of course, i'd want to give myself a major pat on the back for being able to walk out of landmark without a single plastic bag to my name. i saw a lot of clothes that i wanted, i fit a lot of them too, but i realized that with an hour to shop and with no real intention of buying equals purchases that i might end up regretting. on another day though, budget permitting, i will go there and shop my heart out. after all, everyone needs new clothes (and shoes. and bags.) once in a while.

p.s. lest you think i came out of the mall with absolutely nothing, well, i'm not that disciplined. when i got to tita celia's hotel room last tuesday night, i realized i had left the cardigan that was supposed to go with my dress for today at home so i set aside money to get something to go with the dress. after several stores and a thousand clothes racks later, i found this really nice white jacket/blazer with 3/4 sleeves on sale at bayo. perfect. i wasn't able to just buy something to go with the dress, it was something that's also court-appropriate for future hearings. yay me.

overdrive

unfortunately, this isn't about the famous e-heads song, although i distinctly remember my mom singing this to me every time i'd beg her to allow me to start driving. she'd lean close and lip-synch to that part where it goes "gusto kong matutong mag-drive, kahit na wala akong kotse." because for the longest time that was me - license without driving.

it took me almost eight years from the time i first got my license before i actually had any need for it.

anyway, today was one of those rare times that i actually took a car to work. no hearing but tita celia's in manila and you know what that means - wherever she is, i have to be there. so i dumped enough clothes for the next two days in my car, and drove to ortigas - that lovely place north of makati which has less traffic, less people, and what used to be the biggest sm mall.

unfortunately, it was also one of those rare times where edsa was horribly jammed. when i first got off magallanes interchange and saw the almost-ready-to-be-crazy number of cars, i said to myself, pasay road lang yan. i started to panic a bit when the cars in the tunnel seemed to be stuck in place but, ever the optimist, i said hanggang diyan lang yan. did it get better after exiting the tunnel? no. did it ease up by buendia? no. was guadalupe the reason for the hold up? no. boni, we can always blame boni and pioneer, right? unfortunately not. i got to megamall without ever figuring out what caused the one hour and a half trip from mantrade to megamall.

it's crazy, really. i never thought i'd say this, not when i love my car to bits and commuting is just something i do because gas prices are so beyond my finances right now, but thank god for public transport. i can't wait till tomorrow when going to work would simply mean getting on a bus, sleeping, reading, or daydreaming in transit, and waiting for that moment when the conductor would shout megamall to tell me that my trip is over and its time to get down.

crazy swamped

my things to do list looks like this:
- BMA
- FVS-cases
- PMAP
- YON - leave
- position paper
- aug 16-31 cases
- september cases
- finish July 2008
- RLTC stuff
- Tita Celia overnight
- payment credit card
- tuloy kap '08 closing program

and that's just for today and tomorrow. i'd hate to see how the rest of the week looks like. i might just keel over and ... well, shop?

yesterday, as i was pondering on the sheer impossibility of accomplishing everything i've set out for myself to accomplish, i did the most stupid thing in the world: i avoided doing anything on my list. i did try to wake up early and i did accomplish some work. but i allowed myself to fix my closet, iron my clothes, take the laundry in, watch an angelu-diether film shot in 2000 that i didn't know existed, watch the ugly betty season one marathon on star, and take a nap. it's obvious: when the tough get going, rosa does something else.

i do wish my attention isn't that of a five-year-old and that i'd learn how to focus more (for example, here i am writing this instead of finishing the last paragraph of the PMAP article. that would've been one down but my brain just refused to conclude it) but it seems to me i'm not wired that way. hopefully, the focused, mature, writing-machine rosa (which surfaces in exteme cases) will materialize soon, take over my lazy self, and miraculously churn out something (or a lot of somethings) before it crashes at the end of today.

until then, i might have to think of happy thoughts (this too shall end), or resort to bribery (produce something and you can buy shoes or clothes or whatever), or threaten (you want to lose this nice happy job?) because at the end of the day, i did bring all these upon myself and i can only rely on myself to accomplish every little bit of work to be done.

another something about me

by now everyone who reads this know i'm a lawyer, that i talk a lot, and that i like shoes.

here's another facet: i write for kikay exchange.

go see the latest thing i wrote about here.

enjoy!

joy vs. happiness

happiness is getting the stuff i want: an lv speedy, my first coach bag, a balikbayan box filled with everything from wet wipes (i love walgreens' baby wipes that i actually make my mom send me packs all the time!) to isaac mizrahi for target shoes (yes, they're cheap and fabulous, if only they'd fit!) to designer bags (the real dooney and bourke, not the fake ones in greenhills).

happiness is getting in a cold fx, national bookstore's yearly cut-price book sale, and shopping at sm.

happiness is silvanas from brownies unlimited. happiness is having gourmet tuyo from sucre for lunch while chatting with good friends.

but joy. joy is a different matter altogether. joy is tougher, but more permanent. joy, as cheesy this may be, is that song we used to sing as kids, you know the one that goes "j-o-y, down in my heart, deep deep down in my heart."

last sunday, i experienced pure unadulterated joy. joy in listening to words inspired by god. joy in listening to experiences made richer by a life lived in the spirit. joy in lifting my hands up in worship to the lord. joy in fraternizing with brothers and sisters in community and knowing that they too are experiencing the same spiritual high that you are. joy in being affirmed that your commitment to god and his people is the best decision you've made. joy in just being there and "basking" in his glory.

i don't think i've sung louder or raised my hands higher or cried harder than i did last sunday.

thank you, gay, for being one of the reasons why this kind of joy became possible in my life (isn't it ironic how your name is somewhat synonymous to joy and happiness?). thank you, pazi, for being my first ever greeter, for re-inviting me when i was too ashamed to go back to lingkod after failing the bar. thank you, sparkeatags, for being my first ag, my first group of "girlfriends" and for a whole lot of happy saturdays spent together. thank you to my pandan ag for making me look forward to gmmmacqs since i know you guys will be there. thank you to my carpool-mates because fridays don't end with fellowships but the requisite talk 10 care of dom on our way to MB2. thank you kikay ag and fab ag for sustaining the joy - the honeymoon period with alnp may be long over but you guys are definitely making the stay even richer than the honeymoon period. thank you, clp batch 12, for making every moment fun, most especially the weeks leading up to commitment night. thank you, to all my brothers and sisters in christ, for being you. had it not been for all of you, i don't think my life will be as rich as it is today.

but most of all, thank you to my God, the Lord of my salvation, my redeemer, my friend, my hope, my perfect joy, my promise keeper. had i not been adopted by You, eternity will indeed be a very, very long time. my being your child has turned it into something i look forward to each waking day, something i dream about each night, and something that makes this temporal existence worth it.

happy month-sary to me

i was so preoccupied yesterday with the hunt for a suit that had ABB not texted me, i would've totally forgotten that yesterday marked my first month as a law firm slave.

again, one of the partners caught me by surprise when she popped into my office yesterday morning and casually asked me to attend another hearing. with last week's suit still due for washing, i had no option but to make a beeline for the mall and buy something that's acceptable but cheap. thank god i was able to sneak out early which gave me an hour or so to scour the mall for something i can afford. and, wonder of wonders, i went home with a simple black suit that i could live with.

i know i complain incessantly about my wardrobe woes but here's a secret: i love the fact that notwithstanding my present state of poverty, i have an excuse to buy clothes

one month down, a lifetime to go

i've been working at this firm for a month now.

or, more precisely, four weeks.

i celebrated it by sleeping all day yesterday, literally. i woke up at around half past seven to use the washroom. i then struggled back to bed and slept some more. the entire day i'd try to get out of bed to do something productive but save for sending a couple of messages (like canceling a trip to the mall to check out the sale, yes, it was that bad) and hurriedly shoving food in my mouth (hurriedly, lest i fall asleep in the middle of the meal), i could barely keep my eyes open. ten pages into anything i was reading i'd be back asleep again, only to wake up a couple of hours later, attempt to do something, and fail all over again. it was that way until 6:30 in the evening, and even then, i just basically lounged in bed. i had a horrible headache, a pounding one really, and it seemed too much effort to do anything that would require me to stay vertical for long periods of time.

i finally got on my feet at 10, and was able to do a couple of things i had planned for the day. i thought it was going to be difficult to go to sleep since i had basically done that all day, but lo and behold, after shutting off the computer at 1am, it wasn't that long before i was knocked out. the next thing i knew, it wa 5:30 monday morning, with work to be done.

anto said it best when she texted, after i canceled our planned trip to the mall, that i must really be busy now to forego a sale and just spend time sleeping. but i guess this is how 31, with zero exercise, feels like. they keep saying that i'm just getting used to the feeling of actually working 8 hours a day, commuting 4 hours a day, and squeezing in the rest of my life in the remaining hours. i hope so. i still bounce every time i think of how happy i am with my life now. keeling over out of sheer exhaustion is so not in the plan.

anyway, i like how the month passed without me really noticing it. 32, and ack, being at an age that isn't on the calendar anymore, is fast approaching and i hate that. still, it's weird how while days are flying by at warp speed, i can still feel the gloriousness of each day as it comes. i don't think i've ever been happier in my life (in general terms, you know what i mean). everything, stress notwithstanding, makes me want to jump up and down with joy.

and, knowing in my heart that this might be the rest of my life, well, that makes me want to bounce all over again.

so horribly short

lack of sleep and tiredness notwithstanding, i shouted along with the 20,000 other people in the crowd the moment the countdown ended and it was, after more than five years, all four of them on stage again. i sang along (probably much to the consternation of the people around me) to the songs i knew, was amazed at the songs i didn't know (so much for being a fan), and forgot how hot, smelly, sweaty, and tired i was and just basked in the atmosphere. it was everything i envisioned and more. i could barely see the band but once in a while, the tall people in front of me would part and i'd get a glimpse of one, or two, or, at best, three of them, performing like they've never stopped being a band.

they sounded so good, no scratch that, so great that i had to check the giant screen every so often to make sure ely wasn't just mouthing the words.

somewhere in the middle of sembreak and they were showing pictures of up that it dawned upon me that i had not taken part in any UP centennial celebration but i found a way to be in an eraserheads concert. and, while no isko or iska can stake any proprietary claim over the band, i felt that me being there was a tribute to my UP heritage and that if i never get to attend any of the festivities at all, it would still be all right. i was at the eheads reunion and somehow, that's more UP for me than any celebration i would've attended, given the chance.

anyway, i wish i could be generous enough to say i wasn't disappointed or that i could pretend that fifteen songs was enough for me. but a measly hour basking in the band's presence is not enough to satiate me. i wanted more. i wanted them to sing my favorite song, pare ko, or the song i've dedicated to my brother, magasin. i wanted them to sing even the songs i didn't like - julie tearjerky, for one. i wanted the night to never end. i could've stood until the following day, foregone sleep, eating, and the bathroon if it would mean them singing every single song they've ever written.

way back in high school, i remember paolo and some other boys singing "ligaya" in one school program. it was sort of everyone's favorite probably cause our accounting teacher's name was ligaya. i also remember my mom teasing me how my favorite song should be overdrive since i wanted to drive so bad and i didn't have a car anyway. i watched pare ko the movie, claudine and mark anthony notwithstanding, simply because the theme song was, well, pare ko.

now they're talking about a reunion concert part 2. would i still want to be there just to hear them play pare ko? i'm not sure. i want to, but there's the feeling that it isn't going to be like last saturday's reunion concert.

at the end of the day, there's nothing to day except the concert was so horribly short, so much like eheads, the band. they've got so much more to give except that their hearts aren't able to do so anymore.