Moooahahahaha

halloween greetings my friends!

whitening facial mask care of sk II. not that i really want to become whiter, but marlon won a box of 'em at some company event and he doesn't want to become whiter either. so i used it to get back to my normal shade of foundation after our indonesia trip. should have gone trick or treating with it on.

hope you guys had a frighteningly good time!

Ordeal

this is what last tuesday looked like.

upon learning of my, er, exciting train ride, my best friend from high school texted me: "who would have known na ang 12 pesos na binayaran mo ay inclusive of adventure?"

clockwise from top left:

1) although i was vain enough to document the whole experience, i was obviously not a happy camper.

2) the road less travelled.

3) fellow refugees. to the right is edsa. somewhere to the left, i realized upon seeing this picture again, is my high school. i therefore deduce that the negative vibes from my high school caused the entire mishap. decades of stockpiled teenage repression can be a very potent force.

which reminds me that while i was going through this whole thing, i kept on thinking of this cheesy holocaust movie that my high school history teacher made us watch. it was called escape from sobibor and i remember nothing about it except that "sobibor" sounds like a place you'd really want to escape from.

4) arriving at our final destination: the guadalupe station. quite aptly, a billboard affixed to the wall of the san carlos seminary shows a man with an encouraging expression and the words "tara na, pinoy!".

5) chaos upon arrival.

the pictures don't show the cold, pouring rain, the kids and senior citizens walking on the tracks, the pregnant woman beside me having to leap from the train to the tracks, the person at the guadalupe station who fired a gun (i think it was a security guard), and the rush of people who didn't bother to stay and wait to be compensated or explained to--probably because they know life in manila far too well to expect such indulgences.

one of those people was me.

i must say i was just so glad i did not wear heels that day, and that i was carrying a big suede bag that protected my stuff from the rain. my white capri pants got totally mucked up and soaked, thus exhibiting my purple thong with silkscreened sheep to the legions trudging behind me.

i decided to hop on a bus to megamall to buy a skirt to change into (also known as retail therapy). the damage was rather severe for a locally made skirt (php 950 at plains and prints), but i reasoned to myself that i deserved it.

while picking out a bag to bring to work the next day, i decided to use a big, mustard-colored messenger bag i hadn't used in about a year. i opened the wallet that i had chained to the inside of the bag, and was tickled to find two crisp, apparently long-forgotten five-hundred peso bills.

voila! free skirt.

Therapy

after the ordeal (see above), not getting home in time to celebrate my birthday with my family (my birthday cake is still sitting in an unopened box in the fridge), and frenetically popping (or should it be pooping?) out plug after plug after plug (because the goddamned things need to air daily over the double long weekend), i finally got to decompress.

and yes, marlon is home. for my birthday, he gave me a lovely "pamper deepa" box, the contents of which speak volumes about how well he knows me. the box pushes my three biggest feel-good buttons: sleep, books and chocolate. he said he chose the box because it reminded him of us: round and smiley.


between anansi boys, gregory maguire's mirror, mirror (a fab gift from my sister), and four new dvds (wong kar wai's 2046, agnieszka holland's the healer, lars von trier's dogville and wong kar wai/steven soderbergh/michelangelo antonioni's eros), i'm all set to nurse my fried brain back to health.

and not a moment too soon.

I turned 24 today

... and i can hardly wait for this day to be over.

i must say, the first 24 hours of being 24 certainly were...

um, different.

especially since they were precluded by having to leap from the mrt when it stopped during a citywide blackout, then having to walk on the tracks in the pouring rain to the nearest station.

more when i can. i'm in dire need of eye gel and a bed.

Week one

after a long, tiring, exciting and eventful week, i crawl home from the office at 10:30 p.m., decide i cannot find the energy to wait up for the boyf, and bury myself in bed. cold night air, comforter and fatigue -- ahh, bliss. i'm out before my head even touches the pillow.

at 1:13 a.m., aforementioned bliss is shattered by a missed call from my boss. i reach blearily for my phone to find three messages from three different people (yes, including my boss) telling me to call the office due to a booboo in my script for a plug that has to go on air in a couple of hours.

i am suddenly reminded of the tagline from my network's evening news show. dahil ang balita, hindi natutulog! (because the news never sleeps.) well, apparently, neither does entertainment tv.

i get on the phone, hoarse from sleep, and find myself on the line with a snappish editor who does not seem at all happy to be on the graveyard shift and have to hunt for the newbie writer. "ma'am, saan natin hahanapin 'tong line ni k____? iba yung time code na nasa script mo kesa sa yung nandun sa video."

the unspoken rebuke in her voice prompted some of the fastest thinking i have ever done at 1 in the morning on a weekend, and at 1:17 a.m., the crisis is over.

welcome to the wonderful world of philippine tv.

--

"husay! :-)"
-- text message from my partner, charlie
on the script i wrote for my very first plug

it's been a good week: working, learning, having one or two brushes with death (or equivalent). i was writing scripts (well, a script) on my second day, and waking up at 6 a.m. with the dewy-eyed excitement of a newbie to await the airing of my very first plug the next day. true to form, my lola trotted out to watch for "my commercial", fully expecting me to appear on national tv.

then my uber-dramatic slow-mo plug about the death of one character almost aired like a silent film -- with absolutely none of the dramatic music i'd picked out. i say almost, because i remembered to fill out the required form for the music researcher right before i stepped out of the office to head home. whew.

i've met a whole bunch of interesting people, like my fellow newbie who offered to teach me boxing, and another fellow newbie who spent seven years traveling around the philippines as a painter and volunteer worker.

then there are artista sightings around the office, including this one in a crowded elevator with the ka-loveteam of my celeb lookalike-kuno. honestly, i wouldn't have recognized this rainier dude if a workmate didn't insist on taking this pic. now that i've posted it here, my blog is officially jologs! yeah! jologs rule!

i'm paired up with a graphic artist who shares the name of g's missus. that officially makes one charlie in every job that i've held since college. first the evil control freak boss, then our lovely hong kong reporter, and now this guy. i'm enjoying our work and the fact that we seem to feed off each other's ideas. at oc-oc na nga siya, proactive pa! yahoo! sinusuklian na ako ni lord for the nincompoops in my professional past. hallelujah.

and then there are two of my three best friends from college who work in the same building. we got together tuesday for coffee and chitchat. it's nice to know that i can celebrate my birthday with friends even if i have to be in the office next week grinding out plugs before the long weekend.

week one, folks. stay tuned.

Full, full day

woke up at the crack of dawn (well ok, 8 a.m.) to get my nbi clearance from the mandaluyong city hall. was thoroughly impressed with a government office for the first time in my life -- the whole process took all of ten minutes. *applause*

they used a digicam to take my picture, and took fingerprints of each finger (in duplicate, no less) within seconds. the fingerprinting was especially interesting. you have to keep your hand as limp as a jellyfish as someone grasps it in his own hand, presses each finger into a sticky black rubber mat, and rolls them into their corresponding boxes on the nbi form. the resulting prints look like smeary rectangles of thinly spread tar, rather than those familar neat ovals with purple swirls.


this sh*t is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

then sped to ateneo to get my academic records for work. was met by a vile betrayal at the hands of my beloved alma mater -- the registrar's office LOST MY FARKING CLEARANCE FORM.

yes, the one you have to carry around to a billion departments to secure various stamps and signatures to be able to graduate. the one i distinctly remember accomplishing, due to the unmistakable giddy feeling of impending graduation that swelled in me upon the addition of a new signature.

let's see, what else tells me that i actually completed the form... uh, that i farking GRADUATED? and that i've been able to get a transcript on two separate occasions since then?

apparently there's no arguing with the bureaucracy, so i have to relive the whole kalbaryo of trudging all over campus all over again to be able to claim my transcript and diploma. and i have to do it soon because it's sem break and all the departments will soon be on vacation.

FABULOUSNESS.


ang kampon ng kalaban

tried to pacify myself with kfc, but evil fate sent the world's loudest teenage girl to queue up next to me. i was thisclose to telling her to please shut up. for the life of me i can't remember anything that came out of her mouth, but there was a steady stream of it for fifteen long minutes, punctuated by hysterical, gasping laughter. at one point, though, i heard her say, "grabe no sobrang ganda ng big brother kagabi! ang funny funny ni chx! love ko siya!"

aha! kaya pala! said a tiny evil voice in my head. kapamilya pala to e!

that should give you a clue as to my new workplace. oh and by the way chx (yes, it's really spelled that way -- pretentiously) is that pbb housemate whom inquirer columnist gino dela paz describes as "the ditzy simpleton who says things like 'dito na me'."

when i finally had my order in hand, i stopped in front of her for a moment, seriously contemplating her "miss, saan ka uupo?" so that i could sit as far away from her as humanly possible and eat my lunch in peace.


oh yeah almost forgot

today was my first unofficial day at work.

i say unofficial because i haven't even seen an offer sheet yet, but i was asked to come in on a 15-day contract prior to my official starting date (which is november 7). my soon-to-be boss was at an all-day planning session, so i went through an informal orientation by my new workmates and the girl i'll be replacing.

it was one of the warmest welcomes i've ever received. no offense to my factory friends, but everyone had their noses tucked into their monitors and the whole floor was as quiet as a graveyard when i first came in. i was quickly nicknamed yasmien (kurdi, of starstruck fame); they have yet to introduce me to the guy they call rainier (yasmien's ka-loveteam). oh and there's one writer they call la oro after elizabeth oropesa. haha benta.


pressure pressure

i was fast aswirl in jargon (bumpers, trailers, riders, title cards, supers, dvcs) and trying to wrap my head around a whole different universe of thinking (that is, in sound and moving images). i found myself watching tons of plugs (commercials for tv shows), including those for one of the shows that it looks like i'm going to write for. those, i kept watching over and over again because they were so damn good.

i marveled at the plugs done by the girl who came before me and wondered how i would ever produce anything like them. and the artwork done by my soon-to-be partner were simply astounding to me, especially coming from the factory where all artwork is bound, gagged and chained to a template by official decree. my new partner is a very straight male, so to communicate my awe, i simply murmured, "ang lupet." see? i can speak the language. i heard he's extremely oc and efficient -- my favorite kind of coworker.

my new officemates shooed me away at 7 p.m. "yasmien, umuwi ka ng maaga hanggang pwede pa," one urged. hmmm. i see lots of coffee and pimples in my immediate future.


and finally, home

currently taking a breather with a bar of chocolate, a plate of steaming rice and spanish-style fried sardines, and some therapeutic blogging (i.e., this rant).

then it'll be time to start on my raket articles, of which there are two for tonight.

ain't life grand?

It's on, bitches!

sorry. for a moment there i was possessed by perez hilton.

but it's on. really. and while this has been in the works for some time now, actually booking and confirming the tickets has got me too excited for words.

more when i can.

(jetstar's itinerary doesn't really look like this. the positioning of the logo is entirely my doing. but it would be cool if it did no?)


Meanwhile

seeing as i've been tagged by g...

1. my birthday is coming up in 21 days!
2. the only jeans i wear are levi's
3. i have never read a historical romance (a.k.a. "bodice-ripping") novel
4. i love anything that has cinnamon in it
   
5. i never use the same brand of shampoo twice in a row (no special reason, i'm just fickle)
6. my first kiss was at the age of 14 (i was watching a movie with a guy friend)
   
7. i eat uncooked instant noodles (those packed in plastic, not cup noodles, although not recently)
8. i graduated in the top 10% (or less?) of my college batch
   
9. both of my childhood best friends are half spanish
   
10. i almost always order the cheeseburger meal from mcdonald's
    
11. i am absolutely terrified of childcraft volume six ("about animals")
12. i am knock-kneed (a.k.a. peke)
    
13. my high school used to send me to compete in interschool extemporaneous speaking contests (the best i got was second place)
14. i love cats
15. i use a nose spray for rhinitis/hay fever (hmm, i think i've run out)
16. i was president of my college org (glee club, ano pa nga ba)
17. i used to change my handwriting and my signature a lot when i was younger, making it hard for me to keep bank accounts
18. the first movie i can remember watching with my family was "my stepmother is an alien". i distinctly remember my mom covering my eyes when kim basinger stepped out in a filmy red nightie.
19. my name means "light"
20. i get tipsy very easily (am proud to never have puked though. aww i remember the days when justine and i used to cut lab and go to mickey's house to get plastered. and when kael made sure i was sober before going to glee club rehearsal. geez those were good times.)
    

can i just say that it is really hard to think of 20 random facts about myself that i have not already revealed in this blog?

so according to the rules, since it took me 10 minutes to finish this, 10 people have to be tagged right? okay, so i choose jeline, tatat, nette, hazel, jason, ate, jayred, mrs. a, rina and meanne. go forth and multiply!

Foto-me

thanks to lulu, photoshop, and lulu's little toasterlike playmate, i will never have to spend for ID pictures again. call me a cheapskate, but i'm positively tickled by the thought.

the usual recourse for instant ID pictures was the foto-me ID photo booth outside sm or landmark. i remember being shocked a couple of years ago to find out that a little strip of four 1x1 photos from said booth was php 75.

if you needed 2x2s, you had to go to kodak, where six photos cost php 120. the added cost was because you got to keep the negative, which you eventually lost anyway, making this a pretty good scam for kodak.

but i much preferred the foto-me booth, since for some reason i always looked good in those little instant snaps. of a strip of four, i'd always save one for myself, ostensibly to document my passage through the ages (don't know where my 1x1 chronicles are now, though).

and hopeless romantic that i was (still am), i'd fantasize about hopping into one of those booths someday with a significant other and producing a strip of four gooey, kissy, cuddly and giggly photos -- preferably black and white, as they usually were in movies.

my fantasy bubble was burst when i actually asked a foto-me attendant if two people were allowed inside the booth and she said NO. not that i actually had a significant other to take photos with at the time. it was just wishful thinking (or advance planning). sad.

now that i no longer need it, as i can produce my own ID pictures (with whatever color background is required of me), the foto-me booth has slipped a little bit further into the past. it now sits there with a strip of happy snapshots from my childhood: sunday spaghetti lunches at sm's cafe elysee, ballet lessons and cindy's, art lessons and eskimo pies at coney island in greenhills, and tossing rose-shaped 10-cent coins into the fountain at mercury drugstore.

i'd say it's in pretty good company.

tagged by meanne

7 things that scare me:

death in my immediate family (kasi naman e, tatatlo lang kami!)
being widowed
becoming bitter and jaded
mumus
the dark
small enclosed spaces
going to sleep with an open closet door in sight (yes, i’m weird)

7 things i like the most:

dark chocolate
books
shoes
singing
spending rainy days in bed
europe
the beach
sleeping in on weekends

7 random facts about me:

i adore books published by taschen
i once tried to color my hair using blue kool-aid
i own three pairs of gold shoes (one is about to be retired)
i once flunked a periodical exam (35/100 in trigonometry, third year high school)
i have a terrible habit of rubbing my eyes
i stop and talk to stray cats
i cut my eyelashes when i was a kid

7 important things in my bedroom:

my bed
lulu
my bookshelf (and by association, all my books)
the square rainbow basket that holds my collage materials/paper collection
my box of choir pieces
my shoes
my kikay kits (yes, plural)

7 things i plan to do before i die:

go back to school
find contentment in my career
get married
travel with my husband
have kids
learn to cook
learn to drive

7 things i can do:

write
sing
proofread/edit
finish a book in one sitting
draw
make collages
eat just ketchup

7 things i can't do:

bike without training wheels
eat dinuguan
eat bopis, for that matter
drive
not mentally correct someone’s bad grammar
paint with oil paint
keep my room clean for more than a week
run gracefully (the best i can manage is a sort of trot)

7 things (about a person) that are attractive to me:

shoulders
forearms
wit
maturity
a beautiful smile (full lips and dimples help)
passion/ambition
creativity

7 things I say the most:

parang ganon
nge
chiz
haay
anobuh
wahaha
hello

7 celeb crushes:

takeshi kineshiro as of 9:45 p.m. today (after watching house of flying daggers)
christian bale
orlando bloom
does JAZA count as a celeb?
hmmm… shet bakit parang wala na?

7 people you want to see take this quiz:

free for all!

Con te partiro

that’s “time to say goodbye”*… to my short-lived but refreshing stint as a full-time freelancer. my day job begins next week.

the behemoth is finally, finally up and about and ready to take me for a ride. and the fact that there’s a long weekend coming up after my birthday is now a source of pleasure rather than a meaningless factoid.

the past four months have been a blast, although i tend to look back at the whole of august and wonder how i managed to just sit on my fat ass for an entire damn month. even if the writing-for-a-living bit just picked up towards the end, i have to say this was quite a prolific time for me.

aside from churning out the requisite 12 articles a week for my sydney client, i wrote a couple of serious pieces for candy (which got me such gushy feedback from my editor that i started to think she was being sarcastic), did some editing for the factory and pr for the manila chamber singers, and am about to start writing for metro appetite, a food magazine (great, just what i need!).

then there’s my newfound photoshop skills, my collage for kooky (when is she launching the book anyway?), the odd singing raket here and there, a major room and closet cleanup, and more importantly, i made some good headway in my voice lessons, spent more time with my acs friends than i have in a while, and savored lots of quality time with marlon (spending a total of six weeks in singapore!).

not bad for four months of “lazy” time.

good thing this day job is actually something that i’ve been trying to pin down for a long time, or i would actually feel quite sad at the prospect of giving up the time and freedom to be this productive (or not). even though i know this road will lead to some pretty tough decisions sooner or later… well, i’m just going to go on and plunge ahead.

wish me luck.

*never did understand why there are people who actually want this played at their wedding. reminds me of that ditzy society bride who wanted the glee club to sing "i don't wanna miss a thing" or "leaving on a jet plane" at her wedding because her favorite movie was armageddon. go figure.

Doo doo Dubai

to prove his undying love for me, marlon agreed to accompany me to a tagalog movie on a friday night in greenbelt. the movie was dubai, which i, as the decidedly jologs half of this couple, had been hankering to see on account of how much i liked the last “location” pinoy movie (milan, with papa piolo).

i figured dubai had a lot of potential to turn out well, an impression that was fostered by the movie’s opening scene, which had aga driving a pickup truck through miles and miles of sun-baked desert sand dunes with the eraserheads’ “alapaap” playing on his stereo. very nice. (e-heads can make anything work.)

and it indeed seemed to be going very well into the first fifteen minutes or so of the movie. john lloyd, whoi think is rather ugly, actually has a certain “little brother” charm and registers very well onscreen. the supporting cast includes michael de mesa, who can act circles around claudine barrette, the female lead. and of course, aga is a natural.

then somewhere along the way, dubai lost me, and i started noticing things.

uniform

john lloyd and claudine’s characters, at their presumably tender ages, already seem to have reached a dead end in their respective personal styles. john lloyd has a polo-over-t-shirt-with- capri-shorts thing going (every single polo has a big patch on the chest that says “captain”), while claudine’s uniform consists of a stylishly rumpled long-sleeved polo over a tight white tank top and tight capris, with an armful of beaded bracelets.

at first i figured this was de rigeur at the amusement park where she works, but she also wears this ensemble religiously on her days off – of which, for a hardworking ofw, she seems to have an awful lot. she spends them shopping at the arabic tiangge, bellydancing, dating, river cruising, dune buggying, riding camels on the beach/in the desert, and eating gyros.

over the years, i’ve found that there comes a time in every claudine barretto movie when i want to take her by the shoulders and shake her while yelling something. in pare ko, it was “pluck your eyebrows!” in got to believe, it was “you don’t deserve rico!” in kailangan kita, where i believe she launched her new and improved boobage, it was “if you’re going to run around in white peasant blouses all the time, wear a bra!” in milan, it was “you don’t deserve piolo!” here, it was “you’re too young to be stuck in a style rut!”

i also noticed that aga is balding. he has to lose that bagets longish forelock, fast.

moments

for two red-blooded pinoy males, aga and john lloyd are very… mushy. their dialogues are very long, tear-filled and wordy, and they spend the latter half of the movie running around apologizing all over the place. they also say “i love you” a lot. not just i love you, but “mahal na mahal kita.”

i asked marlon, who has two older brothers, if they’ve ever talked to each other in a similar way. he shuddered.

as claudine conveniently disappears from the movie later on, this all becomes quite gay. the inevitable pinoy movie tragic event, habulan sa beach, and swelling gary valenciano theme song are all trotted out for the aga-john lloyd tandem. that their characters are brothers just makes it very, very uncomfortable. there was just this one moment in particular where everyone in the theater got simultaneous, audible heebie-jeebies. (i won’t tell in case you plan to see it.)

sermon

there was a lot of proselytizing about the tribulations and aspirations of the overseas filipino worker. i don’t find this kind of message corny at all. it’s just that a movie has so many opportunities to convey it without getting preachy. this was something milan managed to pull off very well.

in one scene, claudine delves into her reasons for going abroad. “siguro dahil gusto ko lang malayo sa inay ko,” she laments. “o baka gusto ko lang punan ang kalungkutan ko.”

i poked marlon. “is that why you left for singapore?”

he snorted. “oo. gusto ko kasing punan ang kalungkutan ko.”

in another scene, aga hosts a wedding, where he gives a very short toast because he says “hindi naman ako ang kinakasal.” then he picks up the mike and, completely off topic and without provocation, launches into a loooong speech about the ofw’s dignity, hardships, etc etc etc etc. he uses the word “pangarap” at least seven times. or at least it sounds that way, because i kind of zoned out.

i poked marlon again. “if you ever become that preachy about being an ofw, break na tayo.”

tears quivering in his puppy-dog eyes, aga intones, “merong ngang kasabihan. ang pilipino, kahit saang lugar sa mundo mo dalhin ’yan… da best.” he pauses for dramatic effect. “da best ’yan. da best talaga.”

parang hindi ko pa ata naririnig ang kasabihang yan.

And so we meet again

the tv and i.

i am not a tv person. i haven't sat down and watched tv for a loooong time. the tv habit died in college, when we actually lived in a house without a tv for quite some time and when i actually got a life that made me incredibly busy (it was called glee club).

it was actually a good thing, i think -- sort of a coming of age, signaling my evolution from the little girl who actually wrote "watching tv" under "hobbies" in those autograph books from merit that got passed around a lot in grade school.

this week, however, i got to have lots and lots of tv background noise while working, if only not to go insane from writing about the finer points of norwegian cruise ships.

it was a rather inglorious reunion between the boob tube (a.k.a. the glass teat, as maggie so helpfully points out) and i. i seem to have caught the void left by recently concluded addictive shows such as rockstar: inxs, or i work during the hours when all the crappy shows are on, or skycable just really sucks. i managed to rustle up a few thoughts on it, though.

• denise keller is a decent host, although her face is kind of a sablay donita rose.
• what on earth has that hottie utt done to his hair? it makes him look oddly like vic sotto.
• i really like the new video for sponge cola's "gemini." i was first caught by TA's ricky abadreciting the opening lines of romeo and juliet. after that i was a goner. the video was shot entirely in ateneo grade school's henry lee irwin theater (one of the sites of my very first date -- i kid you not), and it works on more levels than one. props to the director, who's probably atenean. the song itself ain't bad either.
• if i hear mymp's "specially for you" one more time, i'm going to barf. especially when the girl vocalist repeatedly sings "oh-so-true" in a vastly irritating, far too precious, small-mouthed way. pet peeve ko yang mga nagpapaliit ng boses.
  
• i don't like emo bands. filipino or foreign, they're just so frigging WHINY. unfortunately, every other band played on myx seems to be an emo band. they all sound alike. i can't tell them apart. (this is a sign that i may be officially growing old.) buti pa si bamboo.
  
• i know 24 is a really addictive show, but i just can't get into it. i am just way too late in the game. *hangs head*
  
• i'm really scared of turning into sharon cuneta someday. the mega is truly MEGA GINORMOUS in her new pH care ad -- and all the camera angling, contoured blush, layered hairdos and poncho tops in the world can't hide it.
• wow. i can't believe angel (the series) is still alive. i had very low expectations for it.
  

Procrastination

i'm in a very comfy place wrapped up in something big and fluffy. i don't feel like taking advantage of the broadband here to do my work.

good thing jeline had a new survey up on her blog. all you procrastinators are welcome to it as well.


gimme five

- of your favorite music videos of all time?
1. frozen by madonna
2. living on the edge by aerosmith (i used to slow-mo this like 10x a day back in my eddie furlong obsession phase)
3. why by annie lennox

gosh. i haven't watched mtv in a loooong while.

- karaoke tunes you always sing along to?
1. secret by madonna
2. time after time by tuck and patti
3. strong enough by sheryl crow
4. something baduy/anything from manila sound, just for fun
5. take a bow by madonna (gadzooks i am now officially out of my madonna closet)

- things you can’t leave home without?
1. wallet
2. phone
3. house keys
4. lipstick
5. liquid blush

- places you’d like to visit?
1. scandinavia
2. india
3. greece (for my former bro-to-be patrick's wedding next year... huhuhu)
4. palawan
5. cambodia or vietnam

- things you want to do in the next five years?
1. study music
2. earn money (hala! e di pa'no na yung no. 1?)
3. lose at least 15 lbs. (preferably not over five years. ngayon na! haha)
4. get hitched
5. do something new -- color my hair, learn to cook, etc.

who?

- who is the person you disagree with the most?
my family, hehe

- who is the person you’ve been infatuated with the most?
let's not name names

- who is the person you know who has the freest spirit?
hmm. several people, of whom the first to come to mind is patrick.

- who is the person with whom you can really let your hair down?
marlon

- who is the person you absolutely can’t get along with, no matter how hard you try?
again, let's not name names. but the glee club kiddies will know the answer to this. and truth be told, i don't try very hard to get along with her.

ahh, love

- on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest), how important is being in love to you?
3.5? there's more to love (and life) than being in love. maybe because i don't have to worry about it anymore.

- ever had an unrequited love?
yes. it was quite embarrassing.

- should your past be an open book to your significant other and vice-versa?
yes. just don't volunteer every single gory detail.

- can you really forgive AND forget?
for the really big things, maybe not at the same time.

- what are the surefire relationship killers in your book?
infidelity, lack of ambition or passion, abusive behavior

i’m too sexy

- what is your sexiest body part?
my eyes? i also have very nice feet, if you're into that kind of thing.

- when do you feel sexiest?
when i'm all dressed up and wearing very nice heels

- what do you find sexiest in the opposite sex?
wit

- who is the sexiest woman ever?
hmm. angelina jolie comes to mind.

- who is the sexiest man ever?
why can't i think of anyone?

bottomless belly alert

- how do you eat your oreo?
in three bites

- if you could bring back one beverage, candy or junk food you loved from your youth, which one would it be?
chickadees, with the free fake tattoos

- which country’s cuisine is your favorite?
italian, indian, thai

- which fast-food chain rocks your world?
mcdonald's

- which grub or drink would you consider naming (or have you named) your child after?
(san) miguel. i'd name a dog bailey ('s).

belonging

- if the world were to end in an hour, whom would you want to spend your last hour with?
my family and my boyfriend. but he'd probably want to spend it with his family too, so it would be the two of us, his family, my family and everyone's choices in a big party.

- what is the best single deed that a stranger has done for you?
i'm stumped. but i'm usually bowled over by random acts of politeness, since they're so rare.

- if your best friend turned out to be gay, how would it affect your relationship?
no biggie. but since marlon is also sort of my best friend, if he turned out to be gay it would absolutely kill me.

- if you could somehow belong to a TV or movie family, which would you want it to be?
the sterlings of robotech. miriya rocks.

- which TV or movie spouse do you wish were yours?
max sterling, so i could be miriya. 'cause she rocks.

never say never

- what is the one job you’d never want to do?
security guard

- where in the world would you never want to live in?
afghanistan under the taliban

- what TV show would you never watch?
any koreanovela or chinovela

- what food would you never want to eat?
ha. madami. i'm a picky eater.

- what sport would you never want to even try?
basketball. i suck at sports.

say who?

- who in life have you felt the strongest need to protect?
i don't know. i've never felt really protective of anyone over a long period of time. i think the closest i got was last week at jay-j's when i told jona i'd only buy him one beer. or maybe maggie.

- who has made the strongest (good or bad) first impression on you?
as a unit, the de pano sisters! as an individual, the ex laid quite a whopper on me

- who is the most interesting person you’ve ever met?
marami! i'm so fortunate to have such interesting friends. i think sir jojo has a really interesting life, shame he never blogged about it again!

- who is the person you know who has the purest soul?
all of my friends' extremely cute kids

- who is the most intimidating person you’ve ever met?
ramon sunico, haha. so many people load-revved out of his class after the first meeting (i didn't, but he was still intimidating). i also get intimidated by very skinny gorgeous people.

i’ll be there for you

- what one quality is most important to you in a friend?
sincerity

- what one offense will make you cut ties with a friend?
a serious betrayal

- would you tell on a friend who’s cheating on his or her partner?
if i was good enough friends with the partner. but otherwise, i don't think so.

- on a scale of 1-5, how would you rate yourself as a friend?
3.5-4? i have my antisocial moments

- can men and women really be just good friends?
yes. quite a few of my best friends in high school were guys, even though i was from an all-girls school

to the max

- what makes you happiest?
music, being with marlon, doing well

- what makes you angriest?
sheer idiocy. i would also say violence against women, but i think that makes me more sad than angry.

- what makes you laugh the hardest?
my acs friends (especially chris ong!), my boyfriend in his silly moods and when he sings along to the radio or tv

- what makes you cry the quickest?
frustration, especially when it comes to my future

- what makes you fall in love the deepest?
being treated like a queen

this or that

- daytime or nighttime?
nighttime

- movie theater or DVD?
theater. DVDs are just a way to catch up with whatever i missed in the movie theater.

- mac or PC?
pc, shoot me

- betty or veronica?
veronica, because she dresses fabulously, has blue-black hair and isn't a doormat

- chandler, joey or ross?
ross. i love cute, endearing nerds

action!

if a movie were to be made about your life…

- what kind of a movie would it be?
funny at times, maybe slow and a little dreamy. sana something like before sunset. hehe.

- who would star as your fabulous self?
me! i've always wanted to be famous. ehehe.

- who would star as the leading man/lady?
i don't know.

- who would star as the antagonist?
ruffa gutierrez! haha

- how will the movie end?
ambiguously but hinting at happiness

back to life

- what TV show would you like back for another season?
friday the 13th

- what movie would you like remade and with whom starring in it?
the last unicorn, if only to get jeff bridges' voice out of my head.

- what song would you like rehashed and by whom?
enough remakes! enough!

- who do you wish was still alive today?
my dad

- what discontinued product do you wish was back in the market?
kao feather shampoo

1 to 5

- what’s one word to describe your current state of mind?
rested

- what are two words to describe what you want more than anything?
happy ending

- what are three words to describe your best friend?
fun, happy, strong

- what are four words to describe your family?
kikay, strong-willed, small,

- what are five words to describe where you see yourself ten years from now?
busy, happy, settled, challenged, proud


chances are

given the chance…

- what reality show would you want to join?
singapore idol. i think it would be really easy to win. hehe.

- what award would you want to receive?
palanca

- what discovery would you want to make?
a cure or a new specie

- what dream vacation would you want to take?
a six-month luxury junket around europe

- which famous person would you want to befriend?
neil gaiman! yay!

music & me part I

- if you were trapped in a stairway, who would you wanna be claustrophobic with?
marlon

- what or who is your sweetest taboo?
oodles and oodles of dark chocolate

- do rainy days and Mondays get you down?
rainy days no, mondays yes

- can two people truly be together forever?
yes, said the hopeless romantic

- when was the last time you were bluer than blue?
after my first european tour in 2000. that was a baaaad time

music & me part II

- what do you do when love is gone?
move on

- are moonlight serenades hot or not?
maybe not hot. more like sweet

- who is the greatest leader of the band of all time?
bono!

- how deep is your love?
deep enough to drown the commitment phobe that i almost was two years ago

- what or who do you always save a prayer for?
my family, my boyfriend, and the country.

BIG!

in life…

- what is your biggest regret?
holding on to the first impression for too long ;-P

- what is your biggest dream?
to pursue what i believe will truly make me complete

- what is your biggest frustration?
letting the big fat dark cloud of insecurity and guilt hang over me

- what is your biggest achievement?
planning the glee club tour, learning to let go

- what is your biggest global concern?
poverty, violence against women

Time and punishment

i'm dying to go shopping. i can't wait for my rakets to pay me so i can splurge on a little something. i made a teeny-weeny purchase today and while i do like what i got,i can't help but feeling a little punished for it.

walking to greenbelt 3 from the ayala mrt station takes at least an hour for an avid bargain-hunter and window shopper such as myself. on your way into ayala center, there's sm to sidetrack you. and on your way out of it, there's landmark (my cheap shopping mecca).

on this particular stroll, i decided to replace my landmark-bought, long-suffering, now-"smiling" pair of favorite gold thongs (sandals not underwear) with a dirt-cheap pair (php 149) from sm's ever reliable parisian brand.

my cheap shopping mecca seemed to sense this betrayal. as i meandered into landmark's ladies' footwear department, my favorite thong maker confronted me with a delicious array of metallic sandals that i could have bought instead if i had not already fallen into its archrival's clutches. i already have one of these in hot pink, so i know they're super sturdy and super comfy. damn. the bronze pair in particular would have perfectly matched the bag marlon bought for me (with much trepidation, i might add) in guangzhou.

waa. i'm sorry, landmark. never again.

haay. and i just told myself that i wouldn't buy any more footwear after this. i intend to slave away on my rakets and wait until i get paid for one of them until i can allow myself to celebrate. and i've restricted my "celebration" to a purchase that i need, but preferably are fun to buy -- like pants (parang ang tagal-tagal ko nang naghahanap ng pants na maganda), a good makeup remover or decent makeup.

the slight kalbaryo feeling is compounded by the fact that i can't celebrate my impending employment just yet. i still have to get through a drug test (as if! i'm such a boring person!), a thorough medical checkup, bureaucracy and the longest list of pre-employment requirements EVER.

waiting, waiting, waiting. ang saya saya.

Public service announcement

for all you perverts out there searching for college girls having sex, college wild things, college girl bangs, college girls in thongs, college girl porn, sexy asian college girls, and all manner of sexual activity involving college-aged females:

it's spelled C-O-L-L-E-G-E. not C-O-L-L-A-G-E.

so next time you decide to google your porn proclivities, spell it right.

now will you please stop f*cking up my statcounter statistics.

thank you and have a nice day.

--

speaking of porn, this is one of the cutest surveys i've answered in a while.

YOUR PORN STAR NAME:
(Name of first pet + Street you live in)
Daffy Aglipay (technically, Daffy the cat wasn't my first pet, but I think he was the first cat we had that wasn't called a generic cat name like Miming)

YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME:
(Name of your favorite snack food + Grandfather's first name)
Meiji Amarendra (O HA! that's the actual first name of my Indian grandfather. I've always wanted to name a child after him, but it's a bit of a mouthful). pwede ring Black Amarendra

YOUR FASHION DESIGNER NAME:
(First word you see on your left + Favorite restaurant)
Ericsson Spices

EXOTIC FOREIGNER ALIAS:
(Favorite Spice + Last Vacation Spot Visited)
Cinnamon Bintan

SOCIALITE ALIAS:
(Silliest Childhood Nickname + Town Where You First Partied)
Dipsy Manila

"FLY GIRL" ALIAS (a la J. Lo):
(First Initial + First Two or Three Letters of your Last Name)
D. Pau or D. Pa (ano buh)

ICON ALIAS:
(Something Sweet Within Sight + Any Liquid in Kitchen)
Caramel Sosa

DETECTIVE ALIAS:
(Favorite Baby Animal + Where You Went to High School)
Kitten Sta. Rosa

BARFLY ALIAS:
(Last Snack Food You Ate + Your Favorite Alcoholic Drink)
Chips Baileys

SOAP OPERA ALIAS:
(Middle Name + First Word you see on your Right)
Arevalo Norton (may bigla kasing nag pop-up na reminder na expired yung antivirus ko haha!)

ROCK STAR ALIAS:
(Favorite Candy/Dessert + Last Name Of Favorite Musician)
Truffle Lennox