smile naman diyan

{part of my rainy stormy friday DVD loot}

to break the non-stop pity party that's been going on the past couple of days, let me just share how positively pirated my grey's anatomy season 7 dvd is. not only is katherine heigl still part of the cast list, worse, it has the cast of house pictured. ☺

thank goodness the dvd was problem-free. started friday night and finished the last episode tuesday evening. the next emotional roller coaster won't be till next year i suppose, as season 8 won't start till september. then again, i also got the house season 7 dvd (and, in case you're asking, i checked, and no grey's anatomy cast on the cover, ha!ha!) and since house and cuddy got together in season 6's cliffhanger, am not so sure the new season won't be emotionally gut-wrenching.

then again, there's the option of watching top chef just desserts and big bang season 4. at least there, it'll just be a toss up between getting horribly hungry or terribly nerdy. not bad, not bad at all.

thinking of sipping buko while digging my toes in the sand

{last photo of jackson wagner before it crashed}

maybe it started the day i got home and discovered that my hard drive had crashed. or maybe when i allowed myself a totally inappropriate crush. or maybe the day i got horribly disappointed about something at work. i can't really tell when, but i do know that i'm not the same girl who was blogging with so much gusto just a month ago.

maybe hormones are to blame (although i've always hated anyone who'd insinuate that my bad mood could be attributed to me having my period -- that's just an excuse, IMHO) or maybe i'm just tired. maybe it's cause i haven't really spent time with my true love, henry sy. i don't know. something's amiss, and i can't fix it for the life of me.

so now, as the title implies, i'm thinking of sipping buko while digging my toes in the sand. and i don't even like buko. tita celia has so generously offered to share her room at the shangri-la mactan when she goes there next month for a conference. and, while i initially said no since i have a cebu trip planned with theo and cathy (we were able to get piso fare tickets) that same month, i figured that no one in her right mind would turn down shangri-la mactan. so, i reconsidered and told tita celia i'd look for cheap tickets online and if i could find one, i'd go with her.

the cheapest i found were P2,000++ ... not bad, considering that in the span of six hours last sunday, i spent half of that for lunch, a pedicure, and a facial. so now i'm just waiting for tita celia's confirmation that the trip is a go, and once i get that go-signal, i'd buy my tickets (keeping my fingers crossed that pat the pilot will be able to get that flight as well ... it would be cool to actually see if he's as great a pilot as he claims) and start scrimping (translation: baon + no lakwatsa for july) and start thinking of, well, what else, sipping buko while digging my toes in sand.

it doesn't get happier than that.

closed for renovations

things haven't been hunky dory in rosa-land recently. i blame the weather, hormones, season 7 of grey's anatomy, and SM withdrawal, not necessarily in that order. in a perfect universe, the PMS-y attitude will go away once ... well, once THAT happens, but this is not a perfect universe. so i'm still grumpy, irritated, extremely short-tempered, and unhappy.

in any case, i've come up with a list of things that'll be imposed in MY life ... up until further notice. you see, i've figured that most of my heartache comes from disappointments, especially when things i'm passionate about just don't pan out (the way i want them ... yes, i am a control freak like that. or spoiled, depending on who's talking. haha!). so without further adieu (i began writing this at 9am thereabouts ... and look at the time now!), the LIST:

1. punctuality is overrated

last sunday, i texted a friend and that friend texted someone else and we ended up scheduling a late lunch together. since i was doing my grey's anatomy marathon, and since i had just loaded up the washing machine, i asked if we could meet up at 1:30pm. they told me to finish my washing later cause someone had to be at a 3pm meeting. so i said okay.

i ended up arriving at 1:10pm due to parking problems. one texted "five minutes" only to arrive 24 minutes later (yes, i am OC about time like that). another one -- no idea whether she was oblivious to the time or what not -- passed by mr. quickie first and arrived at around 1:30 already. no one apologized for being late.

waiting irritates me. waiting without knowing where the person i'm waiting for irritates me all the more. waiting and finding out later that the person was late cause she finished an episode of what she was watching and couldn't be bothered to be early irritates me the most. but, since irritation is the most i can feel for friends i love dearly (all was forgotten as soon as mushroom chicken mushroom was ordered and mozarella thingees were served), i've decided that (1) i will be uber late myself; or (2) i will automatically add half an hour to the appointed meeting time and only arrive then; or (3) i will shave off half an hour from the time i actually have to meet with them and arrive only at the actual time.

maybe this will save me from a lot of "wru?" text messages ... or maybe not.

2. passion is overrated

i am passionate about things. so while i don't cry when i watch movies and i don't feel bad for dismissed employees (pro employer all the way, ha! ha!), when things that i feel passionate about don't go the way i firmly believe they should go, i feel horrible.

horrible as in eat lots of chocolate horrible. as in "i will buy that even if i don't know what to do with it" horrible (hence the bazillions of pillowcases bought over the summer). as in you'll-be-sorry-you're-my-friend-cause-i'll-text-you-about-it-all-the-time horrible. so i felt bad when the HK vacation with my mom and brother got all messed up because they'd rather sleep in the hotel. and i felt bad when i believed management was doing a cop out decision over something. and i felt bad when people in community say okay lang yan when something could've been done better.

so beginning today, i will only be passionate about things that i can control. i can be passionate about keeping the dining table free from random junk. i can be passionate about changing the sheets weekly. i can be passionate about getting to be by 10pm so i get the requisite 7.5 hours of sleep. i will not be passionate about schedules and work-related stuff that are out of my control.

3. indifference is king

i once read that the opposite of love isn't hate but indifference. eventually, i realized it to be true, and i saw how the best way to make someone panic is to show the other person how little you actually care about the situation.

the past couple of months, i couldn't even begin to understand why some people around me could be so indifferent about stuff. they simply didn't care -- i'd discuss with them something that (at least to me) seemed so earth-shattering and they'd say, "ganun talaga dito." the first month, i was all like, "i want to be model employee" and i heard nothing from them except a sarcastic "good luck". worse, i'd see people mocking those who made a big deal out of these things. then it hit me: indifference isn't only the opposite of love, it was a coping mechanism. being indifferent meant they didn't care either way, so if it didn't pan out the way they wanted it to, well, at least, they didn't feel anything about it in the first place. how positively ... astute?

this morning, probably still a bundle of negative energy from all the upset-ness (no such word, but couldn't think of an apt one) of yesterday, i sent this text message to a good friend: i have decided that ... i'll make a checklist of stuff for myself and i'll stick with my checklist for now - no emotions first, no feelings, just pure unadulterated focus on what has to get done. i figured i sort of screw myself up cause i allow myself to be nice, sweet, and horribly invested in things - work, relationships, service. so no emotions first.

i'm not exactly sure how it'll turn out. but maybe, just maybe, i'll be less stressed come december.

p.s. and if the plan doesn't work, i'm hoping that at least the shangri-la mactan thing with tita celia pushes through. i sooooo need a couple of days of just doing nothing but basking in shangri-la goodness.

rejected

first things first: i am not a credit card girl. so, while my debit card gets a regular swiping, i am hardly prone to the devil-may-care shopping spree simply because i don't have a card i can charge it all to.

sadness, i know.

technically, though, i do have one. tita celia gave me an extension card where i can charge the stuff she asks me to get for her. and since the credit limit is infinitely more than what i'd actually spend in a month (wait, the credit limit is infinitely what i can actually afford to spend in a month, or a several months), i've been pretty happy with it. it's my credit card for emergencies, surprise purchases (like the insta-tv), and for when i find myself with no cash and no gas.

like last saturday. confidently, i whipped out the credit card and told the gas attendant, "full tank!" and, while the numbers were turning (at an alarming rate, mind you), i pretended to be relaxed. after all, i knew my card could easily cover it. now, whether i could pay for it was a different matter altogether.*

alas, my confidence was short-lived. as the attendant made his way towards me, i could see that he was about to ask the question that every credit card wielding person wanted to avoid, "do you have another card." and since i didn't have another card, i gave the requisite "try it again!"

they did, and it still refused to allow me to charge. thank goodness that they had express payment which meant that i didn't have to leave my phone or something like that to guarantee payment -- after all, i had on me was P300 and clearly, that wouldn't be enough to pay for the gas they had just put in my car.

the entire drive home i tried calling 89-100 to figure out what went wrong but 30 mins on hold later, i was nowhere near getting an answer (although i was about to exceed my globe limit, boo!). so while i'm technically on pins and needles out of excitement that my application for a BPI credit card seemed to have been approved already (details have appeared on my bpi express online account but card isn't with me yet) and the swiping that will take place soon, i'm beginning to think that me and my debit card won't be divorcing just yet.

*okay, lest i alarm my parents and the general public, i can. i am a responsible adult who has an excel file of her budget on her cellphone. it doesn't get any more OC than that. happy?
and, oh, i am sorry for being defensive about things like this. there have been times in the past that some people have not been too happy with the wit/humor/sarcasm/writing style and have actually called my attention to the fact that i may not be a very responsible person. so there -- a disclaimer. and an outright statement that i am responsible: i have savings, i spend well within my budget, i do not have debts, and i drive below the speed limit.

rainy days and dvds always make me sad

at 2:30 p.m., the announcement we've been waiting for finally came: it had rained enough for the president to give the go-signal to go home. so, after sending off one last email, consuming the sopas (i am in love with sopas more than FBv2* ... that's a fact) i had reserved for merienda, and dropping off tita mayu's printer (two weeks after i had promised to return it -- i am a rotten cow, i know!), i was finally on my way home.

well, more like on my way to a most important pit stop should i be spending the entire rainy weekend at home: ruins.

i'm not sure everyone can relate but anyone who (1) lives in the south and (2) is familiar with BF Homes topography would know the importance of ruins. ruins is the home of pirated dvds, faux bags, cheap thrills, and mixed cds. now that there's a robinson's beside it, ruins' importance (for me) increase a hundredfold. because ruins + robinson's means i can stock up on dvds + the all-too-important junkfood stash while watching dvds.

i got there a little before 5 (no, it did not take me 2.5 hours to get home. (1) i don't drive THAT slow and (2) my house isn't THAT far from QC, just really far) and it seemed like the entire south had the exact same idea. each stall i visited had one or two shoppers (i hate shopping in a dvd stall with plenty of customers ... i like looking for the "underdog" and purchasing my dvds from there. what can i say - i like the seller's undivided attention!) and it took a while before i found an empty stall where i can get my fix.

house season 7. grey's anatomy season 7. top chef just desserts. big bang theory season 4. and, since i begged the lady for a discount, i got the move "no strings attached" for free.

the minute i got home, i stuck the movie in the dvd and started watching (it was a great movie, btw. perfect for the-universe-is-so-perfect-that-impossible-things-will-happen dreamy-eyed people such as myself). after that, i got started on grey's anatomy.

and that's when i got in trouble.

let's backtrack a little: when grey's anatomy first came out, my friends from the court of appeals and i were all hooked. and we each appointed characters for ourselves. ironically, we all liked who we "were" in the show and it somehow coincided with our personalities. over the years, they stopped watching, but i continued buying dvds and watching entire seasons in one go. when i watched season 6, i ended up texting my boss (my boss!!! eeeep!) with existentialist questions like why am i not as passionate as these people are about my career. such a doofus moment, but considering that i was crying (and i never cry - just ask my friends) while typing out the text message, it came out more pathetic than anything.

so, imagine that it was cold and it was raining and i was alone and i was watching season 7 grey's anatomy ... bad, bad, bad combination.

i am proud to say though that i had held off texting my boss this time, but i did send a barrage of messages to gay about life, love, and what-nots when i continued my dvd marathon last night. now, i'm afraid to turn on the dvd and continue my marathon ... who knows what kind of thoughts an overcast sunday + episodes 8 onwards might bring.

then again, gay is just a text away. and so is my boss. i think they love me enough to put up with the drama.

*forbidden boy version 2 a.k.a. the new crush
** sorry for the liberal parenthetical remarks. i am just a wee bit chatty this sunday morning