quitting time

these days, i can't help but ask myself if, instead of jumping onto this job, that i should have spent time pursuing my dream of JVP.

would you believe that i already had the form, had asked friends to fill out the recommendations, and was all set to leave THIS life for a year and just serve others. the only problem was that i was too darn chicken to stop being a lawyer for one stupid year.

and now, i am upset, i am sorely unhappy, and don't even know what i want from this life. i can't help but ask, what if?

isn't that pretty miserable? it is, IMHO.

dear world, gusto niyo po ba talaga ako pumayat?

i am a creature of habit. if there was a grand plot to assassinate me or something (uhm, hello summer students, i know you want to do this), it would be as easy as a pie since i hardly ever change stuff around.

heck, i even order the same thing from my lunch place all the time: monday - sinigang na bangus; thursday - bachoy; friday - rellenong bangus.

predictable, right?

so as i was having a really horrible day yesterday, going through a personal mini-crisis or sorts, i figured why not resolve it the best (and most effective) way i know how -- by food, and by food, i meant my staple food. as i said, i am a creature of habit.

okay, i know i could lose more than a few pounds, and i've said countless of times that i'm going to diet and stop eating stuff, but yesterday was a really bad day, and i had stayed in the office later than usual working on yet another pleading, so i was hungry and i really needed food in my system.

first stop was subway. fail #1. it was not even 8pm and they had run out of bread already. so much for my sub of the day fix.

second stop was MXT. jumbo siopao at Php65 = happiness. fail #2. it wasn't there. at first i thought i had the wrong floor so i went up one more floor. not there either. apparently it had closed down. but i ate there at least once a week (or once at least every two weeks). how could it close down without so much as a tiny piece of bond paper stating where it transferred or when it would open again? boo, megamall, boo.

with two "fails" i was pretty despondent. i figured maybe it was time to cut my losses and just go home. after all, barely a kilometer away from my home is my not-so-secret 24-hour favorite lugawan place. i could always go there.

but i was hungry, the stomach-growling kind, and i was miles and miles away from home. so i stopped by kfc, ordered take-out, and devoured the coleslaw salad while on the shuttle to alabang. with the yummy smell of chicken and gravy wafting from the plastic bag on my lap, i knew i will survive till i got home.

and i did.

except that, had i not bought the kfc, and had i counted on my lugaw place, i would have been in for fail #3. cause when i passed by, for some reason, it was closed and boarded up and *gasp* no tiny bond paper telling me when it will open again or if it ever will.

Edit, at 4:28 p.m.: we had lunch with a client, and one of their representatives asked me, "when are you due?" i actually couldn't understand what he was asking and i asked him to repeat several times until i realized he thought i was pregnant. i couldn't say anything except, taba lang po yan. so yes, world, i hear you loud and clear. gusto mo na talaga ako pumayat. diet begins ... tomorrow?

* i know the picture has nothing to do with the post, but it's a happy picture, during a happy moment, and we all should be reminded of happy stuff, right?

BYOB,* anyone?

remember this?

i took that picture when we went on that pasig river cruise in the hopes of finding our own dear "august". needless to say, what we found was lots of trash. it was enough to make one swear off plastic bags forever.

however, when the image (and smell) faded from my mind, i must admit that the practice of bringing a recyclable shopping bag with me at all times likewise faded. while i do remember to bring them with me once in a while (like last friday when i did my groceries☺), i think i don't do it often enough.

it was thus a wonderful surprise that in Hong Kong, there are places where they have a zero plastic bag policy, and ngong ping happens to be one of them.

on our first day in HK, we just dropped of our bags in the hotel and immediately went to ngong ping village. this "sculpture" was the village's ode to their policy of "fading out" the use of plastic bags. and, if the idea is something that you're not exactly comfortable with, the brass plaque on the sculpture has a couple of fascinating facts for the skeptic:

1. the plastic bag you take lasts longer than yourself on the earth.
2. plastic waste is pollution!
3. plastic bags are harmful to the environment
4. they are like monsters invading earth. although plastic bag[s] are still available everyone should do their part in changing their habits and fade out the usage of plastic bags in their daily lives.

what's more impressive is that in several stores - like mannings and taste - actually charge you 25 cents (Php1.50) for every plastic bag that they will use to put the stuff you purchased from the store in. quite revolutionary -- at least in SM on Wednesdays they give you the option of putting your purchases in paper bags for free -- and alarming (especially when we found ourselves in taste without our disposable bags and a whole lot of groceries -- thank goodness we had purchased a number of items from some of the other shops so we just redistributed those and used the extra bags for the groceries). i mean, can you imagine manila without plastic bags? can you imagine buying grocery and being told that unless you have your own shopping bags, you will have to pay for the plastic bags they will use? naku, baka magwala ang madlang pilipino niyan.

then again, can we entirely wipe out plastic bags from everyday use? i'm willing to bet that instead of buying trash bags, you use grocery bags as trash can liners. and that your "dirty clothes" as well as extra pairs of footwear during out-of-town trips are stashed in grocery bags as well. if households had no plastic bags at all, will we not end up buying some other form of plastic as well like garbage bags?

i wish i had an answer to my own questions. but for now, why don't you try it. it really doesn't hurt at all. ☺ ☺ ☺

* bring your own bag

in the meantime ...

it's going to be a long day for me, rushing and what not, not to mention the need to be a "creative writer" once more. so, in the meantime, enjoy this picture with the promise that there'll be more posts to come once this craziness is done and over with.

while the entire philippines was silently asking where james yap was ...

... my friends and i decided to finally do something that i've wanted to do for the longest time: go to dapitan arcade.

first things first: i am by no means a martha stewart. i admit that there are times when i wish i were, but the mere fact that i am totally averse to any form of cleaning means that i will never achieve domestic diva status.

i am, however, proud of the fact that i know how to work an electric drill and in fact installed the curtains in my bedroom and the living and dining areas of my home.

still, i guess the girl in me wanted a lovely living area, something i can call my own, and so i've always asked my friends to go with me to dapitan arcade to find treasures.

and what lovely treasures we found. (i wish i could post pictures here but (1) i forgot to bring a camera yesterday and (2) i haven't taken pictures of my stash yet.)

shy (my friend and our driver) truly got to buy a whole bunch of things including vases, jewelry cases, presents for her mom and sister, future christmas gifts, and a whole lot more. in spite of being the one who has always wanted to go there, i went home with a mini-stash -- that metal tiered thing with plates that you can use to serve lots of stuff without taking so much space on the table and this lovely matte black bowl and three ceramic apples that, for some unknown reason, are a weird color. still, i actually like the weird color. so sue me.

after that, we ate at TGIFriday's Morato so we can avail of the P99 peso chicken fingers -- sigh, it was heaven, except that with drinks and appetizers, we still ended up spending around P500 each. truly, it's so expensive to eat out these days. i think i shall just eat at my (now) uber favorite subway. then again, i don't know what i shall do once they stop having subs of the day.

dessert was at the lovely, lovely fleur de lys.

after that, they were just thinking of dropping me off at megamall where spike was parked but then we had so much fun being together that ...

... we parked at podium and went around for a bit (with ting buying an umbrella from NBS bestsellers of all places) and then crossed over to ...

the tiangge at st. frances square where ting had to stop us from buying, and buying, and buying ... sigh.

it was a lovely mid-week adventure. i felt a bit wala sa uso cause while the entire universe was watching history unfold as noynoy took his oath as president and gave his now-famous "no wangwang" speech, i was gallivanting around metro manila carrying about as if buying ceramic apples were more important than the next six years.

then again, admit it. wasn't 50% of you just majorly curious where james yap was?

*images from visitpinas.com, http://www.philippines-travel-guide.com/podium-ortigas-center.html, and st. francis square website respectively