ten steps to getting over that effing depression you couldn't shake off

1. complain, then go to mass. make a deal with god (yes, that's biblical. i learned that somewhere) that if he gives you peace, you'll stay single for a while (not like that will be relevant to him, but hey, if it works...)

2. go to sleep early (to avoid crying your eyes out again).

3. wake up early -- apparently for no reason except cause you slept early. then decide NOT to go to work. that's always a sure way of making you smile.

4. spend the day in bed with a book. alternate between reading and sleeping. concentrate on avoiding any form of work or studying in general.

5. sleep early (cause you woke up early, remember?)

6. wake up at ten, read messages on phone, smile over the fact that a friend is asking for a get-together that HE WILL PAY FOR, call (because he doesn't have a cellphone) a guy you dated way way before and actually ended up being friends with and ask if he wants to come. while doing that, sort of incorporate in the conversation that you will be going to a children's party and would he want to come too?

7. if free get-together doesn't push through, still go to birthday party with guy you dated before and actually ended up being friends with. now this will be strategic because what does one actually do in a birthday party where the only people she knows are the parents of the kid and no one else.

8. proceed on to spend the next 26 and a half hours (yes, that's more than one day) with the guy you formerly dated and actually ended up being friends with. enjoy Ü

9. wait for aunt's text message inviting you for dinner at dampa. go to dinner at dampa.

10. since you're always the responsible person who books most of your aunt's kikay affairs, be part of her spa trip by calling the spa for her, booking her and her friends for treatments, and joining them for their treatments. make sure she pays for aromatherapy head and shoulder massage and peppermint foot scrub.

now, the possibility of all of these things happening all in the same weekend is next to impossible but that's what happened to my weekend and these are the reasons why somehow i am able to say that happy days are here again. isn't life lovely?

one of these days, i'll have a happy post to go with it.

one of these days, i'll post something that you guys have been accustomed to reading in these pages.

one of these days, i'll find happiness again.

but not today.

update! happy days are here again!

last monday i cried.

and for the first time in months, it wasn't about frustrations with law school or because of the ex-boyfriend. it wasn't cause i was lonely or cause i was hot.


and as the picture on the right would probably have clued you in by now,
it was because alfonso lost.

on the nth hottest day of summer, i was living in the lap of luxury

saturday (or was it sunday?), according to the news, turned the philippines into a preview of hell when the temperature rose to 37.9. that's only one degree to go before the school nurse will send you home for fever. that's hotter than your base body temperature. that's something that would have bothered me had i been holed up in my room again, desperately trying to concentrate on wage orders while trying to ignore the fact that i am still quite stupidly thinking of my ex.

however, i wasn't at home. and, while i wasn't desperately trying to concentrate on wage orders, i was able to push the thought of ex boyfriend out of my head. apprently, all it takes is a lovely room in shangri-la.

dear g,

i know i've been bitching about my life lately - and i know you know it cause you spent half the night listening to me whine about everything and anything. thank you for being the wonderful friend that you are, and for inviting me to join you and your friends in quezon.

i told you i was going to study. i thought i was going to study. i also told you i was going to work on a million and one things. i thought i was going to work on a million and one things too. if you checked out my car when i left the house last saturday you'd know that those were my intentions. however, even with the best of intentions one can only do so much. i tried lugging around that thick beast of a labor law reviewer inside my bag all weekend long - when i went to the mall, while i was chowing down food after the baptism, even while i was in the lap of luxury inside a lovely hotel room in shangri-la. all to no avail. there simply was too much fun to be had when you've got relatives with you and a lola who is only all too willing to spend on you now that you are two weeks away from resigning.

and so, needless to day, i enjoyed my weekend. thank you for texting last night and asking how i was. let's see: i started with being a godmother in laguna, then drove to makati to check-in my lola, grand aunt and her husband in gilarmi, then moved over to shangri-la to enjoy my aunt's corner room. on sunday, i had this huge calorie fest at the shangri-la breakfast buffet, served as my aunt's driver and personal shopper, did a mini-parlor trip to get my eyebrows threaded, and spent the rest of the day enjoying home-cooked food with family i have not hung out with for more than five years. i had a blast (save for that guilty feeling you get when you don't study). and you know what, even if i didn't enjoy any of those things, with a view like this, how can you even begin to feel lonely?