I might not get to blog til next year, so...Happy New Year, squishy people! (I'm giving up my vices/I'm going back -- back to school/Eviction or not/This week's been so hot/That long as I've got you/I know I'll be cool--RENT, Happy New Year)

In other news, will probably be transferred to another office. It's near the one i'm in, but 'crap!' i say. I won't be with bestfriend len-len anymore. guess i'll just learn to chain smoke or braid my hair to keep myself (in)sane.

Will be meeting Dell and Da tomorrow to try out this place, Cafe Lupe which serves roasted chicken in rose petal sauce a la Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. Can't wait, though for the past three days it seems i've been eating nothing but chicken.

Well, must get back to the daily grind (Yep, I'm at work. No Holiday Breaks for me, oh no.>_<)

Effing Cheery Holidays

My appeal to graduate cum laude has been disapproved.
FOTAH. Well, happy effing christmas to you too.

Which Dysfunctional Care Bear Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

It's Our Party and We'll Bitch If We Want To...

Yep. The lantern parade and the post-lantern parade party was great. CAL (College of Arts and Letters) won in the Best 'Party'cipation category (Hurrah!). The party was held again at Peloy's Palace of Porn ^_^ It was really great, even if the sliding glass door in the room we were sleeping in fell on me.
Now that i think about it, that really sounds alarming. My mother was absolutely worried when i texted her that i had a head ache because a door fell on me. She wanted me to go to the hospital and have my skull X-ray-ed >_< They thought the glass shattered and that i was horribly wounded and all--but when the door actually fell (i was sitting on the bed) it actually took me some seconds before the fact that i was hit on the head sank in. Good thing i was a wee bit drunk and laughing at misheard lyrics so i didn't feel that much pain.
But definitely the highlight of the night was the Dell & Del braving the freezing waters of the rooftop tub in their underwear. Hah. We were all around them waiting for *something* to happen, but alas...
Oh yeah, we met some new people, who were a bit windang, seeing us all bitchy and noisy and obnoxious and generally--our selves. We'll, its our party and we'll bitch if we want to. I think they were particularly disturbed when they tried to get into the room (where i had my date with the sliding glass door), and we would ask them if they'd want some hot lesbian sex. If they said "No" we'd usher them out. Hah. It was a joke, hello. And a warning. Us wenches are not bound by heterosexualist notions. Although all of us, as far as i know, are heterosexual. Umm, no. As Monsi says, our sexuality is fluid. Whatever. We were having fun.
Anyway, i really missed these drunken antics. I think we have some quotable quotes somewhere, i have to ask tim or thea about that.
And it wasn't nearly enough--our meeting, i mean.Gem and MM are heading off to Iloilo for the holidays, Twishie ,Lynzzy,and Apwil left too early and didn't get to taste the choco mudslide.
i don't think i'll see the rest of them any time soon. *sigh* except for dell--i'll see him on sunday to lend him gloria anzaldua's book, Borderlands (a great book).
Oh well. Must get back to the daily grind >_<

Last Saturday my great grandmother died. She was 102 years old, I think, or probably older.
I'm trying to think of some fond memories i have of her, but mostly they're childhood memories, because for the last 10 years or so old age had played tricks on our 'Nanay'(she's our great grandmother, but to her children she was Nanay, and that's what the grandkids and great grandkids called her.) You know how old people revert back to being like kids, wanting attention and all that.I remember the last time i actually vaguely understood her mumblings--probably last year at Christmas--when she was complaining that her children (my grandmother and grand uncles)werent listening to her anymore. At least that's what i thought she was saying. She spoke to us in Bicolano,and when i was a kid i could still make out what she told us, mostly about nganga or chewing betel nut. Yep, my fondest memory of Nanay was her letting me watch as she prepared her betel nut. She had this old, worn cosmetics bag-like thing, with little jars of powdered herbs and leaves. She would take out these jars, and i would watch and listen as she named the contents, roll the powdered herbs into a leaf, then place the leaf carefully between her molars. Then she'd chew. In a few mintues her mouth would be dyed red, and my brother (only my Kuya then, since Mark & Chad weren't born yet), my cousins and i would eagerly wait for her to spit her seemingly blood-stained spit.Kinda icky, but I think that's what fascinated us the most.Actually, everyone in the family attributes Nanay's long life to the betel nut.I've forgotten what the names of the contents of Nanay's little jars. I can't even recall if, during these last few years, if she still chewed betel nut. Nanay often stayed in Novaliches with my grand uncle, and sometimes at my grandmother's house, where my aunts took care of her.Since i rarely visit both those houses, i rarely saw her.
Nanay lived a long life--as to whether it was a full life, i don't really know. She was married to a somewhat strict, aristocratic Spaniard (who died the year i was born), and she lived through the Spanish (maybe the latter part), American, and Japanese occupations. That's kinda crummy--having seen all those wars and all. I still wonder though, about her life. I wish i learned more from her. But i was a kid and too occupied with kid stuff back when she would talk to us.

I've recently found out about this indie film, Ancanar, based on the one of Tolkien's works (i think in The Silmarillion or unfinished tales). it isnt as big a production as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, of course, but from the info in its official site, i think its really great. The story that the movie portrays was not written by Tolkien. Tolkien had written about the Valley of the Rammoth (the setting of the movie), its history and people and that was used as the basis for the movie--provided the background for the film, so to speak. Tolkien's story ends with the foreboding destiny of Ancanar, the heir of the Rammoth Valley. And that's where the film takes off (I think). Anyway, I hope it'll be in theaters soon (they have a trailer already) but since its an indie movie, i doubt if it will ever be shown in the Philippines :(
I've also added some links to sites about Tolkien and his works; the Ancanar site is there as well. It's still a partial list of Tolkien sites i like, but i'll add the others soon. I'm supposed to be finishing a 47-paged document at work, but of course, delinquent office lady that i am, i don't give a rat's ass.

Tonight is our Christmas presentation night. i have the urge to hide in the bathroom and claim that i have diarrhea.

Bleagh.

Katawan, katawan, katawan, OH KATAWAN! >_<

Another day at the daily grind. Still very sleepy. Woke upin the middle of the night because of some nasty mosquito bites. I must remember to fumigate my room sometime this weekend, and to actually clean it. I also woke up early so i could write the script for the office christmas presentation about 70s music. of course it turrned out crappy. i don't know--I choose not to know how the 'jeprox' spoke back then. But apparently, the script was okay, tho nothing i'd be proud to say came from the bowels of my brain.In the said presentation i'm going to dress up as one of the Hagibis members-you know, the Filipino version of The Village People. I'm gonna look like a complete idiot, but its better than dressing up in those 70s frilly blouses and dancing to disco.Why does it feel like i'm back in high school, where they force you to do stupid things?

****

Over the weekend i got the urge to go to Antarctica, to just get the hell away from here. I reread Madeleine L'Engle's Troubling A Star only to linger on the descriptive passages on the landscape and the animals there. I checked the internet for trips to Antarctica, and whaddya know, it'll cost me about 300,000 pesos to go on such a trip.And that's just the cost of the cruise from South America to Antarctica. I'd still need money for the flight to South America from the Philippines. Hmph. Even if i work my butt off for the next 10 years i couldn't save that much. Or maybe i can, but by that time the price would've increased. Or Antarctica would be then spoiled. Hah.
Tis the winter of my discontent.

Here i am with a new blog and a not-so-new heart.
Heh.
That would be true if i hada heart.
OK. Here's a rather long entry...

**********

It starts with...

CLOTHES. It starts with clothes. Assimilation, i mean. I once read this article about the proper way of dressing in the office environment.At the very onset it emphasizes how one must conform to the dress code of the company they work for. It doesnt even take a written, fully implemented mandate to dress in a certain way;the mere fact that all the other workers dress relatively the same way can create an unwritten but very much visible dress code.This pressures the ones who are new to the office area to dress in the same way, either not to be branded as an "outcast" and "freak", or to simply blend in and get along with all the others.

*puts away formal-sounding self*

so...this is exactly what is happening to ME. We relatively have a relaxed attitude when it comes to dressing in the office because we are not client-based, meaning we dont necessarily talk to clients so we can wear pretty much, casual clothes.So i come to work wearing jeans and t-shirts, the way i always do when i go to school. But is it just me, or do i always seem shabbily dressed whenever i'm at work? could it be that i appear decent when i'm in UP because dell, the dugyot king, is there and thus makes me look decent? (hehe, peace dell ^_^v)
Normally, i would not care about my clothes. I'm comfortable in t-shirts and jeans. But...i don't know, maybe i'm ashamed (?) of being so shabby and unfashionable. Or i feel that I stand out to much, when all i want is to get on with whatever it is they employed me for (the sooner i finish the quicker i am out of here.)
Thank god for the earphones plugged into my computer or walkman, so i could listen to my cds and all the tapes gem and bengki lent me. They provide temenos-a protective circle around me so no one would dare speak to me.
Or maybe I just feel panghihinayang with using my hard-earned cash to buy three effing blouses that cost Php 1,700. With that money i could've bought a couple of shirts and jeans, or two comic TBPs or Tori Amos' and Matchbox Twenty's new CDs, or that paperback edition of Laura Esquivel's Swift as Desire and a ton of other books.
Sometimes i think (after a morning of frustration trying to decide what to wear and ending up with jeans and a t-shirt), "what the fuck, i'll just friggin' wear a shirt. who friggin' cares, anyway." But when i get to the office and I don't get greeted by the guards in our building because i don't deserve a "good morning ma'am" because i don't look especially respectable...At first that was amusing because i don't get ego-trippy with being greeted by people whom the corporate world's stratification has labelled "subordinate" to others.But lately its depressing me. The whole place depresses me. I'm frankly sick of the sight of the place >_<

*buries head in arms* and i don't feel the Christmas spirit :(

I need to get really wasted. this life of relatively clean living is driving me bonkers.

Hah. I thought I wasn't going to complain about work anymore? Bear with me, I don't have anyone to complain to. This experience has done nothing but bring to light certain insecurities about my self.But if anything, as Jasmin told me over the phone last Friday, at least now I don't have any qualms about teaching. Having a job like this makes teaching seem like such a desirable, die-able occupation.