sharon cuneta must lose weight. soon.

don't get me wrong. i love sharon cuneta. in my world, sharon could do no wrong. it's just that as i was watching pinoy box office, i caught the tail end of pasan ko ang daigdig and she was thin. really thin.

and i think back to the sharon i saw on tv last sunday. not thin.

it was then that it dawned upon me. i love sharon so much that i've emulated her weight. and, minus the getting pregnant and marrying before she was legal, i'd like to believe i'm going through the same issues she went through when i was her age: career, love, family, yada yada yada.

so i'm thinking, if sharon finally loses all the excess baggage, maybe i too will lose the weight.

p.s. for the record, i've begun eating cereal (whole wheat cereal, is this me?) for breakfast and i've bought myself a package of instant oatmeal to eat whenever i feel the urge to eat junkfood while working on a case. i've heard people losing weight thanks to cereal and oatmeal. hopefully, one day, i'll be one of those people too.

when i picked my red car, i wasn't really thinking of how attractive it would be when it comes to MMDA and other traffic enforcement officers. but after being flagged down for tiny traffic violations at least once a year since i started driving, i now know better.

anyway, since i started working for the government, i've learned that most traffic enforcement officers will be reasonable once you tell them that you work for the government too. they smile at you, you smile at them, they remind you not to commit the same mistake, you promise not to commit the same mistake, everybody happy.

last friday, though, i met my match.

an MMDA officer flagged me down for apparently being in the wrong lane. i was on the third lane, on my way towards the coastal road when an fx on my right made a left turn, effectively forcing me to ram down on my brakes and let him pass before i could go on my merry way. imagine my surprise when instead of signalling to the driver of the fx, the traffic officer signalled at me.

me, the girl on the third lane.

dutiful citizen that i am, i stopped and gave the officer my license. he then informed me that i was on the wrong lane. i reasoned out, but i was on the third lane. he told me that from first to third lanes you're supposed to make a left and fourth lane outwards go straight. so i argued, if you're penalizing me for not making a left, then you should have penalized the fx driver too for turning left when he was on the fourth lane.

no, he reasoned out. the driver would not have almost hit me had i made a left like him. i was wrong he pointed out. but then, i asked, shouldn't he have gone straight? he said, no, you should have turned left.

it got to the point that he was so pissed at me for reasoning with him (and for probably having a brain, cause, really, you see my point, right?) that he said, if you don't want to believe me, then i'll give you a ticket and you can question it when the time comes.

now, i didn't go through the gruelling debate society trainings, get humiliated in law school, and study for the bar twice to let him get the better of me, especially when his argument was so clearly flawed. so, it was then that i demanded to see his supervisor.

he then gave me a new argument: first to third lanes go left, fourth lane can either go left or straight, and from the fifth lane onwards, straight. now, wait a minute, i told him, now there's a new set of rules? he said, no, it's always been than way. then i asked, but where's the paint on the road? how do i know you're not making this up as we go along.

by this time, he was so pissed at me he even went as far as telling me that he wished i got into an accident so that he could have made out the report and i would have seen how i was in the wrong. i told him i realized i may have been wrong but i am not about to accede to the fact that the fx driver wasn't wrong simply because they said so. and, absent any markings on the road, how am i to believe that he's not making the rules up as we go along?

at the end of the day, i was able to talk to his superior who was clearly more reasonable than he was. i explained my position and the faulty reasoning of the other officer. i also told him that absent any arrows on the road, how am i to know where i'm supposed to be when, in a five-lane road, the third lane usually can go straight already?

reasoning (and brains) will always win out in the end.

i got my license - no ticket mind you - and left the other officer huffing and puffing as he made his way back to his post hoping to catch some poor person who he can scare into submission.

incidentally - in the event you get caught, REFUSE to allow them to write down "reckless driving" as your violation. this merits the highest penalty and once you've had three violations, they can suspend your license. force them to be specific in writing down your violation and if they're unable to, challenge them. you don't actually have to pay the fine immediately. if you read the back of the ticket, you can actually challenge the legality of the ticket at a hearing specifically scheduled for that.

fugly

that's how i feel. after almost two years of evading the uniform issue, i now have to wear one.

well, not at least until august. or september. or october. maybe if i keep my fingers crossed, not until november?

i don't care. all i know is that while the pants fit me well, i'm stuck with tops that are too short on me and are a bit wide. makes me feel like a teapot if you ask me. hopefully, the guys who made my uniform will be able to fix it and when i actually have to wear them, i'll look halfway decent.

but i'm telling you now that if i end up alone, single, and horribly obese ten years from now, i'm not blaming myself. i'm blaming the uniforms they're making me wear.

never trust your brother to pay the bills. or at least trust him when he says "just reimburse me for the cable payments so i can get the points in my credit card." chances are, you'll wake up one day and realize you don't have cable anymore.

there was a time when my brother used to handle the money around the house. then, he hooked up with this chick and stopped living at home for a while, so i decided it would be better if i took care of it. i opened a bank account, enrolled all the bills, and religously made a trip to an atm machine once a month to make the necessary transactions.

i do it for meralco and pldt phone bills. i used to do it for cable, too, until my brother volunteered to handle the payments himself.

so, monthly, the bills would come and i'd ignore them. they're getting paid, i smugly though to myself.

this morning i woke up and, since my routine dictates i do this, searched my room (v. v. messy room) for the remote control and opened the television.

blue screen.

ah, i always get reception problems with etc and etc second avenue, i told myself, maybe this is just it. i then changed channels. channel 2. i ALWAYS get channel 2.

blue screen.

my once sleepy self then jumped out of bed and searched for the cable bill which, all this time, had been innocently staring up at me from a table in the living room. turns out we hadn't paid cable in months and there was a disconnection notice already. and we have to pay TODAY or our cable will be cut off.

so, first thing i'll do is to make the necessary payments. and, hopefully, the absence of cable is just a glitch. it did say on the bill we have to pay on or before today so i have until midnight to make the necessary payments before they disconnect my cable. anything before that and i might have to litigate my first personal case soon.

i've turned into an insomniac and i blame abs-cbn's games uplate live.

i've never had any problems sleeping. save for a couple of days here and there, sleep comes to me like money to donald trump. so the fact that i've been wide awake at night for the last three weeks can only be explained by one thing: games uplate live.

i used to catch it after i'd arrive home from lingkod. there'd be this perky girl and i'd be amazed at her ability to have fun all by her lonesome. i admired her for being so perky so late into the night. in spite of these, i never thought of actually spending time watching her.

but then one night, i did. i was so into it that i actually registered, downloaded a ringtone (i think), and actually waited for them to call me. they never did, but i ended up being an addict.

i've watched it every single night since. and, while i have never succumbed to the temptation of downloading again, i have yet to sleep before 2a.m. since i began watching that damn show.